Putangitangi
Well-known member
A few days ago I found one of my yearling heifers sitting down looking pretty thin (I'd been restricted by an injury for a couple of weeks and the person checking the cattle hadn't noticed anything amiss). When she got up, she could hardly walk, but the pain obviously eased a bit as she went along. Got her down onto the flats and she put her head down and ate as though she'd not been doing so for days.
Her feet look weird to me, as if they've suddenly done an enormous growth spurt - I'd swear they didn't look like this three weeks ago! Formerly her hooves consisted of the black shiny bit - and her herd-mates still look like that.
She walks sort of back on her heels. It appears that the surface makes little difference, she's no more sore on stones than she is on grass, so it's as though the pain is not caused at the surface of her hooves. She still spends a lot of time sitting down, but will also graze for more than an hour at a time.
I spoke to the local vet and asked him about Laminitis. He says he's never seen it in a beef heifer - they get nothing but grass and it's not the best pasture in the world, so it's unlikely to have been caused by too much of anything good.
She's one of my favorites, of course, and was on track for the mating draft this week. Not now.
My suspicion is that I missed seeing the worst of whatever has troubled her and that she's on the way up again, but I'm still pretty concerned about her. I'm encouraged by her enthusiasm for eating. All other vital signs are normal - temp, excreta, etc. The only other slightly odd thing is some little warty spots under her bottom lip. I don't know if they're related or not. There's not much likelihood of anything odd appearing in their paddock, and she is the only one affected.
Her feet look weird to me, as if they've suddenly done an enormous growth spurt - I'd swear they didn't look like this three weeks ago! Formerly her hooves consisted of the black shiny bit - and her herd-mates still look like that.
She walks sort of back on her heels. It appears that the surface makes little difference, she's no more sore on stones than she is on grass, so it's as though the pain is not caused at the surface of her hooves. She still spends a lot of time sitting down, but will also graze for more than an hour at a time.
I spoke to the local vet and asked him about Laminitis. He says he's never seen it in a beef heifer - they get nothing but grass and it's not the best pasture in the world, so it's unlikely to have been caused by too much of anything good.
She's one of my favorites, of course, and was on track for the mating draft this week. Not now.
My suspicion is that I missed seeing the worst of whatever has troubled her and that she's on the way up again, but I'm still pretty concerned about her. I'm encouraged by her enthusiasm for eating. All other vital signs are normal - temp, excreta, etc. The only other slightly odd thing is some little warty spots under her bottom lip. I don't know if they're related or not. There's not much likelihood of anything odd appearing in their paddock, and she is the only one affected.