Well, you
may have noticed that I have been pretty much MIA for most of the summer. That
is partially because I’ve got like 10 hours of mowing a week to do (when I
haven’t broken the mower repeatedly – but more on that later), and partially
because this summer has put me through an emotional wringer and I haven’t been
able to share it until now. As you might assume being on a farm brings me into
frequent contact with death so perhaps one would think that I would be immune
to the pains of it, but I am most definitely not.
Early this
summer Sweetie Pie calved again. What you probably don’t know, because I didn’t
tell you, was that her calf from last year (Honey Bunch) died and I couldn’t
figure out why. Despite being treated by a veterinarian I felt like I had
failed her, that if I had just done something differently or noticed something
sooner I could have fixed it.
So, when SP
calved and the sweet little heifer was just another red calf I was
disappointed. I know. The fact that she looked like everyone else shouldn’t
have mattered, but I still wanted a redo, and the fact that she looked nothing
like my darling Bunches hurt more than I care to admit.
Long story
short, Captain America milked SP for a few days but with the distance between
us and his work and haying schedule that wasn’t a good long term plan so we
started searching for another bottle calf to put on her (since she makes too
much milk for one calf to eat and it can lead to health problems to leave her
with that much pressure in her bag). He found a beautiful little Charolais
heifer off of a Facebook group, and I instantly fell in love even though the
guy who had her mentioned to CA that she was “tenderfooted.”
Tenderfooted,
my right buttcheek. When CA brought her home she was a textbook case for joint
ill; in all four joints, and her navel. I insisted that we name her Sugar, and
SP’s calf Cinnamon. My world revolved around her.
What followed
was roughly two months of being told that vets “don’t treat joint ill in
calves,” “just euthanize her,” and “I could do something if she was a horse.”
Bovine discrimination is STRONG, ya’ll.
So I
Googled, and read Plum’s and Merck’s, and when they didn’t tell me what I
wanted to hear I read books on alternative treatments and got her an
acupuncturist (whose treatment protocol included Chinese herbal medication that
actually did A LOT to help her). I borrowed my mom’s therapeutic laser and gave
her photon therapy every other day alongside the acupuncture, Chinese herbs,
probiotics, astragalus & Echinacea, conventional antibiotics, and milk
thistle (to prevent liver damage from the conventional antibiotics). I soaked
her in Epsom salt baths. I gave her Reiki. I sang to her while she ate (even
when she was eating at 3:30 in the morning, because by God that baby needed me
so I was up and cheerful about it). I chased her around with a fan during the
hot days and carried sauce pans of water to wherever she was laying. I took a
thousand pictures of her beautiful little nose. I drove her hours to try (and
fail) to get her treatment, and finally cajoled our regular vet into opening up
on of her joints. He was amazed at how bright she was and how good her joints looked
despite everything.
I started
making plans for how to do bovine physical therapy to help her stand and walk
more easily and looking into long term options for arthritis care.
Then at 6:30
one morning she started making a very distressed sound, which was odd because
she had never even mooed at me. She started to bloat even before I could get
her loaded in my car. I rushed her to the vet, but she was dead before he got
there. She either threw a blood clot in her lung or had an abscess burst and
died in my lap in the backseat while we sat in the parking lot.
I was, and
still am incredibly torn up about it.
About a
month later CA called me in a panic because Sweetie Pie was down and he thought
she was dying. We hauled water to pour over her to cool her down while the
emergency vet was on her way. She had no clue what was wrong with her, but
treated her for low blood calcium (milk fever). She couldn’t stand on her own;
so mom and dad (bless them!) drove a sling made for lifting horses and cows
over at 9 pm on a Friday night (they didn’t get home from that trip until like
2 am). We lifted her up and hung her off the front end loader periodically for
about two weeks before she started standing on her own again. We gave her tubes
of CMPK, probiotics, antibiotics, and I force fed her baking soda thinking that
maybe it was acidosis.
Then about
three weeks ago she started having bloody diarrhea. I begged CA to bring her
over to my house and I got her some sulfa, more probiotics, keto gel, more
CMPK, power punch, different types of wormer, and everything else you could
think of to give a dairy cow who was showing signs of either an infection of
her digestive tract or ketosis. She got better after two days and I poured the
grain and alfalfa hay to her. She ate great for a week and then started feeling
sickly again. As of last week I was buying spinach, arugula, and baby kale for
her because she acted like everything else was making her nauseated. She passed
peacefully on Friday afternoon - laying on a pile of straw in the sunshine.
Her blood
work came back Thursday. She had Bovine Leukosis, a disease that upwards of 40%
(depending on which study you look at) of dairy cows in the Midwest are
infected with. Some are asymptomatic, but when a cow does exhibit symptoms it
is fatal. It is also probably what killed Honey Bunch. There is no treatment or
prevention available. The only good news is that it is only spread through
blood and, in limited instances, milk or perhaps by biting flies(the sources I
have read weren’t 100% positive on that). We will be testing to make sure that
no one else has it. Fortunately we don’t reuse needles or dehorn, which can
spread the disease pretty quickly. (For more information look here.)
Even more fun?
The DNA of the virus has been found in human breast cancer tissue. They aren’t
positive how it got there yet, but I would expect there to be more studies on
it in the next few years. The things they don’t tell you before you go buy a
milk cow, huh?
Another fun
test came back today. Sweetie was Johne’s disease positive too. That one,
again, is fatal in ruminants that exhibit symptoms. Many dairy cows carry it,
and it is much easier to spread than the Leukosis. I swear. I’m going to have
to set up a go fund me page to be able to test everyone for all of these
things.
I love that
cow, but I really, really wish that someone somewhere would have told me about
all of this before I got a milk cow. We followed regular protocols for
including a new cow in the herd – you know, keep them separate for a few weeks
and look for signs of disease. When they don’t show any signs of anything you
toss them out in the pasture, and in my case inadvertently introduce the cow
version of Typhoid Mary to the herd.
Going
forward I implore you to learn from my mistakes. Make sure that any bottle
calves you bring home have had colostrum and watch their temperatures very
closely. If they start going up don’t mess around with antibiotics. Call your
vet and try some Baytril – or Excenel.
There is a pretty good protocol listed here.
You’re going to need a broad spectrum solution, and seriously if you have a vet
locally who does Chinese medicine too, the herbs helped Sugar considerably. I
can’t say they broke her fever, but about a day and a half after she got them
she had a normal temperature for the first time in weeks.
If you are
interested in getting a back yard milk cow please talk to your vet about
getting a test for Bovine Leukosis and Johnes disease before you bring your
baby home. Many cows are asymptomatic for all of their lives, but if they
aren’t it is very likely that they will die before age 10, and in some
situations they can pass it along to other healthy ruminants. Forewarned is
forearmed.
Oh, and if
you have a Grasshopper mower with the rear discharge NEVER BACK UP. You crinkle
the metal like tissue paper and blow grass clippings directly towards the
engine. And if you do figure out that a crinkled guard is the problem, don’t
put a new on on and then back up AGAIN thinking that it had to be a fluke. It.
Is. Not.
It has been that kind of summer.
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| Sweetie Pie, the day we brought her home. |
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| Sugar, getting her electropuncture. |
