Doctoring the Herd
#bfrdpwy #aginternship #RightRisk
This week was another week of trailing. We got one of the groups to the mountain onto the BLM allotment where we will go back and shift them to the next pastures after some time. Included in this week was vaccinating calves and doctoring some sick cows. When we vaccinated calves, we gave them 2 shots and a nasal spray that protects them from pneumonia and the shots that protect them from common diseases. Before vaccinating, the calves had to be sorted off the cows, which included about 10 of us to do. After sorting, things went smoothly, and everyone got their vaccines. We also brought the heifers up to the corral to trailer them to the Forest Service allotments next week. While gathering 2 heifers, a bull caught our attention and needed doctoring, but because of their size they needed to be sorted out and run through the squeeze chute. My host showed me how to run the hydraulics on the chute while we brought the cattle in, which were not as complicated as it seemed.
One heifer had a major abscess under her stomach, which they thought was from a stick getting pushed up and stuck in her abdomen. Ethan checked the lump to make sure it was an abscess by sticking a needle in it to see what came out and it was indeed an abscess. After draining the abscess, the heifer got some antibiotics and was sent out of the chute. The other heifer had an electric fence insulator stuck on her eyelid. They thought she must have been rubbing on it and the slit got stuck on her eyelid causing the insulator to push against her eyeball making her blind in that eye. She got some oral antibiotics as well as ocular antibiotics to fight off any infection, and she should still be able to have a full life with only one usable eye. The bull was the fastest to treat as he only needed an oral medication to treat what seemed to be hoof rot on his hind foot.
I was glad to be involved with the doctoring processes this week at the ranch as well as in the pastures when we would notice a sick calf that we could rope to doctor. I also talked with my host about a disease known as lump jaw. It is an infection in the mouth that spreads down to the bone causing a big lump on the side of the affected cow’s face. Once it reaches the bone, there is nothing that can be done efficiently to heal it and the cow will be humanely euthanized. My host told me about a treatment that is being developed to heal lump jaw if caught early enough. I would like to look more into that treatment as it sounded interesting. We also talked about how he sees more lump jaw than other producers because he feeds barley straw. It is very nutritious and helps keep the cows healthy, but because of the sharp edges, it can cause an abrasion in the mouth leading to lump jaw. There is a risk vs reward factor when deciding what to feed cows and for my host, the benefits of feeding barely straw in the ration outweighs the risk.
This next week involves bringing heifers to the mountain and gathering another pasture. I’m sure there will also be time spent learning more about the haying process as that has been a major focus lately. I look forward to researching the lump jaw treatment more and getting ready to vaccinate more calves soon. I plan to use what I learned vaccinating prior in the next group and hope to try to understand the different medications better.
Submitted by: Ronnie Owens
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team
