Freak accident

[gabby]

I just lost a 500 pound heifer to a freak accident. She got her front hoof caught in the steel hitch frame of a dump wagon. When I got to her, she was flipped on the ground with the hoof firmly wedged and badly cut. I had to use a fence post like a battering ram to move the hoof back along the frame to pop it loose but the vet said her joint fluid sac was ruptured and the foot was broken so I had him put her down.

How or why she got her hoof up there I will never know. It was jacked up at least a foot high so she had to step high to get her hoof in there.
gabby

 

[Crowderfarms]

Gabby, Sorry to hear of your loss.I've seen cattle do some of the darndest things. We lost a real nice Heifer last year, she did'nt come to role call, and I went looking for her and found her head lodged in a Sycamore tree.She was standing straight up, dead as a hammer. Had a couple that had to be rescued with heads stuck in hay rings.Just like the old saying goes, "If you aint got em' you cant lose em"

 

[Mahoney Pursley Ranch]

Sorry to hear about your bad luck.

 

[ollie]

Glad that was all it was. I hate to see those freak accident posts. Farming/Ranching is dangerous work. It luls you to sleep then kills you or a family member.

 

[Pharmer]

I had one suffocate between 2 rows of hay this year.

 

[jersey lilly]

We have a four roller rectangle syrup lick. The fill hole on top is just big enuff for a 500 or so # heifer to get her foot in. We'd just had the tub filled drove back to where we'd been puttin up some electric fence. We needed somethin off the ranch truck and sent son back to get it. He come back telling us a heifer had her foot hung in the hole and had fallen down. In his eyes it looked like she had broken her leg. Oh great..it was almost dark thirty, we were gittin ready to quite for the day. NOW we hafta rescue a calf. Hubby tied her three remaining feed with a rope and we pulled and tugged..twisted and turned but no matter what we did we couldnt git her foot out. We finally got the tractor with a stinger on it and rigged up a sling to lift her..still no luck. Naturally there wasn't a saw to be found. All we had was a machette on the back of the ranch truck and a hammer. So that's what we used, drove the tip of the machette into the edge of the hole and cut it about 2 inches. Finally after all that we got her foot out. And she layed there like she was dead. All this happening in a matter of 30 minutes. Finally after alot of coaxing she got up...limped away. I figured she'd either be down or dead the next day. But she was fine, not even limping.
How'd she get there? the only thing we could figure was they were excited about the new syrup and being smaller she ended up getting up on top of the tub and her foot just went in.

 

[Chuckie]

Gabby, I know that had to hurt. Sorry that you had to go through it. Hopefully, it will be the last.

 

[flaboy]

Sorry Gabby about your heifer. Here is a little humorous accident for you. I have a BA cow that I call butthead. She is named that because she butts other cows around. One day I had a brindle cow getting water at one of our old cast iron watering troughs (bath tub). She standing there drinking and ol butthead comes up and blasts her in the side knocking her into the tub upside down. So ol brindle is in there splashing around and can't get out (all four feet sticking straight up). We ended up having to get a chain on her rear foot and pull her out the sloped end of the tub with a tractor. We used a slip hook on the chain so when she got out and stood up the chain slipped off her foot. She got up looked around and walked off. Now ol butthead got a 2x4 planted across her rump for doing it though. Figured it was better to pull her out quick rather than have her trash around get stressed and give up. She calved about two months later with no problems.

It was funny at the time but could have lost the cow too.

 

[sidney411]

I'm sorry to hear about your heifer, it's hard to lose one. It hurts in our hear and your pocketbook. Cows do the darndest things. We have some old junk hay rings and other misc. junk down in the bottom by the creek. A while back, there was one cow missing when I called them up for a look, her calf was with the herd though. We found her INSIDE of one of the old smashed up hay rings. There was one piece of pipe that was poked in and whenb she went in she slid right by it but when she tried to back out it poked he in the rear so she wouln't back out. It was really kind of funny - she could only walk one step forward and one step back. We just bend the pipe back out and she backed out. She must not have been too upset about being there because if she would have trhashed about any the thing would have fallen apart it was so old.

 

[Brandonm2]

I had one suffocate between 2 rows of hay this year.

We had a steer get out, get in the barn, and get trapped under stacked roll bales he collapsed on himself once. We would not have found him until that March except his dam (3/4herf:1/4 Charolais) was raising so much freaked out nonstop Hell outside that barn that we eventually figured out what had happened and managed to find and rescue said calf (ok except for being a little dehydrated).

 

[Southerngal]

Sorry to hear about your accident. Always hard to lose one.

 

[Susie David]

We send our thoughts as well....haven't lost one yet but have pulled calves from places that you'd never think that they would fit....Sue & Dave Mc

 

[A6gal]

Gabby, sorry for your loss. I can't imagine having to put one down. My heart goes out to you.

A couple of years ago I had a calf get his neck stuck in the fork of a tree. He had to have stood straight up on his back legs to get his neck between that fork. Then he didn't have enough leverage to get hisself back up and out. Thank goodness we happened across him when we did, I don't think he would have lasted long like that. It took 3 of us to lift him and maneuver his head out. I went back and hammered a 1 X 4 on each side of the fork to prevent that from happening again.

You just never know what's gonna happen next when you have cows.

 

[gabby]

Sorry Gabby about your heifer. Here is a little humorous accident for you. I have a BA cow that I call butthead. She is named that because she butts other cows around. One day I had a brindle cow getting water at one of our old cast iron watering troughs (bath tub). She standing there drinking and ol butthead comes up and blasts her in the side knocking her into the tub upside down. So ol brindle is in there splashing around and can't get out (all four feet sticking straight up). We ended up having to get a chain on her rear foot and pull her out the sloped end of the tub with a tractor. We used a slip hook on the chain so when she got out and stood up the chain slipped off her foot. She got up looked around and walked off. Now ol butthead got a 2x4 planted across her rump for doing it though. Figured it was better to pull her out quick rather than have her trash around get stressed and give up. She calved about two months later with no problems.

It was funny at the time but could have lost the cow too.

Thanks for that funny story Flaboy, and thanks for everyone's replies. Just so happens I have a cow named Butthead too. She butts me in the butt if I'm walking along too slowly with the bucket of cubes and don't give her enough. I watch my back now!

Here's another happy ending. One time after we moved the cows one of the mommas comes parading down the barn driveway where she wasn't supposed to be, all agitated. We got her back in the pasture and finally found her baby. He was about 8 feet down in a dry old filled well that had settled, and he was alive and well and on his feet. I wasn't in a mood to get down in the well with him so I got some fill dirt and slowly dumped it in the well, raising the floor level and him with it. Got him out easily that way and I was pretty pleased with myself for filling the well and saving the calf all at the same time.
gabby

 

[dun]

Seems like we alwasy have several calves named butthead. And it changes from day to day

dun

 

[Beefy]

For some reason that reminded me of the first time i found a calf. i guess i was maybe 5 and my dad, sister, and i were riding around checking on cows. there was this one cow off to her self and we drove up to her and dad said he thought she'd had a calf and for us to help him look around for it. so we drove around and around looking for the calf and dad decided that she must not have had it yet but was fixin to because she was acting strange. being a typical little 5-year-old detective i was like "not so fast!", "she keeps looking toward that ditch, did you look in there yet?" and dad was like "i dont think it would be down in there" and i insisted "well.... lets go see, she acts like it is." and was like "maybe.." and low and behold the prettiest little calf was down in the ditch and couldnt get out. i think i was hooked after that.

 

[J]

I just lost a 500 pound heifer to a freak accident. She got her front hoof caught in the steel hitch frame of a dump wagon. When I got to her, she was flipped on the ground with the hoof firmly wedged and badly cut. I had to use a fence post like a battering ram to move the hoof back along the frame to pop it loose but the vet said her joint fluid sac was ruptured and the foot was broken so I had him put her down.

How or why she got her hoof up there I will never know. It was jacked up at least a foot high so she had to step high to get her hoof in there.
gabby

Last night I was digging some post holes, when I got finished I loaded up my stuff and kinda cleaned up where I had been working. Since I need to dig a few more hole I was just going to leave my shovel and post hole diggers there but when I looked at the open end of those post hole diggers I remembered your post and decided I had better load those up too. I don't have any cows in that pasture but I do have 2 horses and all I could think about was getting up this morning and finding one of them with a hoof stuck in there. Good post, sometimes we need to be reminded of what can happen.

 

[preston39]

gabb,

If she wasn't one of those pets and If no infection had set in I would have harvested her for the freezer.

Sorry to hear of the loss. With a herd of animals we can expect anything.

 

[Beefy]

for real, what could be more accident prone than a horse?

 

[Bama]

If one nail in 10 miles of fence is sticking out a horse will cut itself even if its on the other side of the post.