My beef died this morning

[greybeard]

I ate some venison from a deer I hit with my pickup, about 35 years ago. Yep, illegal as hell in this state, but i was still a little wild and roguish back then. . Not bad. A bit bloody but since I ground most into pork/venison sausage it didn't matter much. I wouldn't try it without knowing how long it had laid there..

 

[Dave]

If you had enough freezer space it would make a lot of dog food.

 

[TCRanch]

I sure wouldn't eat one without knowing exactly what happened. As a general rule, an otherwise healthy (and vaccinated) animal doesn't just up and die unless it's from lightning, heart attack, aneurysm, choking or a freak accident.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

It's legal to eat road kill in Oregon.

Want to eat roadkill in Oregon? Here's 9 rules you have to follow first

A law allowing people to bring home deer and elk killed on the road

www.statesmanjournal.com

 

[GoWyo]

I sure wouldn't eat one without knowing exactly what happened. As a general rule, an otherwise healthy (and vaccinated) animal doesn't just up and die unless it's from lightning, heart attack, aneurysm, choking or a freak accident.

Or bloat. That's what my feeder blamed it on -- was dead and bloated when they found him anyway.

 

[Nesikep]

Dang that sucks.. I put down one of my old cows on sunday.. calving complications, thought we had her fixed and and she went downhill bad overnight, had no fight left in her in the morning

 

[Nick Wagner]

Heart attack already mentioned by TC. PAP, pulmonary arterial pressure. Known as high mountain or high altitude disease, simply high blood pressure. A few years ago there were reports of significant feedlot losses from this inherited condition, they would literally drop dead in their tracks.

 

[GoWyo]

Heart attack already mentioned by TC. PAP, pulmonary arterial pressure. Known as high mountain or high altitude disease, simply high blood pressure. A few years ago there were reports of significant feedlot losses from this inherited condition, they would literally drop dead in their tracks.

Some of those we can tell are starting to have problems and get them processed early to salvage something. Had a freemartin heifer do that a couple years ago. I supposed some do just have a heart attack and never showed any signs.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

What about hardware disease? My husband says it's a sign when they have some swelling around the brisket.

 

[Travlr]

What about hardware disease? My husband says it's a sign when they have some swelling around the brisket.

Any hardware disease I've seen is a pretty slow death. Basically the animal gets a massive infection as it starves to death. I've heard of hardware actually invading the heart to cause quick death, but I've never personally seen that.

 

[TCRanch]

Any hardware disease I've seen is a pretty slow death. Basically the animal gets a massive infection as it starves to death. I've heard of hardware actually invading the heart to cause quick death, but I've never personally seen that.

Unfortunately, I've had my share of hardware disease. Learned the hard way and now, every cow, bull & retained heifer has a magnet. But still lose some to glass (thank you, booze cruisers that throw your bottles in my pastures) or other sharp objects. It is generally a slow death but if the size of the object they ingested is long enough, when it penetrates the reticulum and subsequently heart, they're gone pretty fast. That said, yes, generally swelling of the brisket and sometimes legs - congestive heart failure. Drooling, runching of the back, laying down with their head up for better air flow. Temp is quite often normal. Loss of appetite and poo will become hard and dark. There's not a darn thing you can do if they already have a magnet. Antibiotics may help but generally just prolongs the inevitable.

 

[Travlr]

Unfortunately, I've had my share of hardware disease. Learned the hard way and now, every cow, bull & retained heifer has a magnet. But still lose some to glass (thank you, booze cruisers that throw your bottles in my pastures) or other sharp objects. It is generally a slow death but if the size of the object they ingested is long enough, when it penetrates the reticulum and subsequently heart, they're gone pretty fast. That said, yes, generally swelling of the brisket and sometimes legs - congestive heart failure. Drooling, runching of the back, laying down with their head up for better air flow. Temp is quite often normal. Loss of appetite and poo will become hard and dark. There's not a darn thing you can do if they already have a magnet. Antibiotics may help but generally just prolongs the inevitable.

Every place I go I tend to pick up anything that a cow could ingest, and take it home to throw in the trash. First thing I did when buying my places was patrol the grounds for metal... and the damn bale twine. Just the other day I saw a heifer over at the neighbor's eating twine.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

Because of these horrible deaths my husband has always had a fixation about picking up every single piece of wire, every nail, every screw. He was a long rectangular magnet on a stick he runs around on the ground when he or I drops something. Yesterday I came back with a bucketful of old rusty nails pulled from the scrap lumber when we tore down an old springhouse roof. That was my job, pulling every single nail. Bailing twine is my fixation. I have removed many pounds of twine looped on the fences by the previous owner. Especially when I caught my heifer Honeydew vacuuming up some twine, just in time pulled a few feet out of her mouth. Cattle have one way mouths with all those little inward facing hooks in their gullet.

 

[StrojanHerefords]

I have heard from four different sources that angus cattle (black and red) have an issue with steers dropping dead right before slaughter. My theory is that with so much selection for marbling, fat is being deposited on the heart and causing heart attacks.

 

[GoWyo]

I have heard from four different sources that angus cattle (black and red) have an issue with steers dropping dead right before slaughter. My theory is that with so much selection for marbling, fat is being deposited on the heart and causing heart attacks.

I chatted with Dr. Holt about the PAP issue when we had him PAP test our bulls. He said it is tricky because there are genetic components as well as environmental. However, with enough data at least some of the genetics can be teased out out of the ball of data. He said that the Limousin breed used to PAP very well and now as a breed is one of the worst. Certain sires such as Sydgen Enhance are terrible for PAP. Enhance is at the 99th percentile. GAR Hometown is in the top 1%. All a breeder can do is keep testing. What is really difficult with PAP is that the test isn't really valid until they are a year old and have a $700-800 feed bill in them and have to cull an otherwise good bull.

 

[bird dog]

maybe this

Late-term feedyard death loss economics

There has been a lot of discussion about late-term death loss in finishing cattle in recent years. There are obvious economic consequences of losing an animal that has been on feed for a long period of time, and those costs increase as feeder prices and feed costs increase.

www.agproud.com

A lot of unneeded info but the key was this paragraph

As the feeding period progresses, the cause of death for cattle shifts from predominantly bovine respiratory disease (BRD) to digestive upsets and feedyard-associated acute or atypical interstitial pneumonia (AIP). This phenomenon was observed by researchers when they reported that the average days on feed at time of death in finishing steers was 62, 99 and 105 days for BRD, digestive upset and AIP, respectively. The reasons for greater digestive upsets later in the feeding period are clear. The longer the period that cattle are fed high-starch diets, the more likely they are to encounter an event such as inclement weather, illness or an improper feed call that can lead to inconsistent feed intakes and, ultimately, acidosis and bloat. In the case of AIP, the etiology is less clear, but factors that are correlated to an increased incidence include high ambient temperature, airborne dust and infections.

 

[Mountaintown Creek Ranch]

I've always wondered about people that eat roadkill...

I mean, how do you know how long it's been laying there?

Dry Aged gives more flavor !!

 

[ClinchValley86]

I've always wondered about people that eat roadkill...

I mean, how do you know how long it's been laying there?

Hope they at least do the smell test. Yikes.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

The presence of vultures could be a clue.