Just lost our second cow, just after calving. The first one calved last saturday, was fine all day saturday and was flat out dead when we went to feed Sunday morning. This second one is one of my brother's really good donor cows. So far the vet hasn't been much help with any firm answers. We took the first one to the university for them to post and haven't heard any real answers yet. We have a bunch of recips ready to calf this week and need to figure out what is going on. The first cow was getting a mixture of wet distillers grains and ensiled corn shucks from the local seed corn plant. The second one never was fed any of that, but they both calved out in the same barn. While they were penned up in the calving pen, they were both eating the same big round bale of hay. The hay came from a neighbors. A few years ago he had planted a food plot for the deer that my brother says he called brassica. (I know it is NOT Turnips) He said it was just like alfalfa. I looked at the bales but they didn't look much different than alfalfa. The first cow calved on her own with no signs of anything bad. When I saw her dead body on Monday, she seemed rather swelled up in her vagina/vuvla area. My vet thought maybe she ruptured her uteral artery and bled out but we took her to the University on Monday to try to get a confirmation and haven't heard anything back yet. My brother said his heifer acted like she didn't feel good yesterday so he gave her some banamine. Last night when he called, he said she had swelled up in her backend quite a bit. The only thing that the two heifers had in common was that they ate that same hay, and calved out in the same old barn. Anyone have any ideas? Is there any type of forage that would have been planted for deer food plots that would make them more pre-disposed to rupturing blood vessels and bleeding out internally when calving? My brother's heifer was a $10,000 heifer so we are grasping for straws. Just thought I would see if anyone on here had any ideas......
Hay causing internal bleeding?
- Thread starter delta 88
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novaman
Well-known member
http://www.uwex.edu/ces/forage/pubs/brassica.html
It sounds like any kind of brassica could cause some problems if it is the sole forage. This link talks about grazing but I would think it would apply to using it as a hay as well. The first thing that popped into my mind was nitrates. If it is nitrates the animal will have a chocolatey brown color to the blood because nitrate inhibits the ability of the red blood cells to carry oxygen and the animal essentially suffocates to death. Hope you can get the problem solved.
It sounds like any kind of brassica could cause some problems if it is the sole forage. This link talks about grazing but I would think it would apply to using it as a hay as well. The first thing that popped into my mind was nitrates. If it is nitrates the animal will have a chocolatey brown color to the blood because nitrate inhibits the ability of the red blood cells to carry oxygen and the animal essentially suffocates to death. Hope you can get the problem solved.
jerry27150
Well-known member
if the hay came from a food plot out in the woods, i would guess there may be some poison weeds mixed in
novaman
Well-known member
So do we get an update? Looks like he posted and hasn't come back.
