Need help please .

[hillsdown]

A ten month old heifer aborted in very cold weather ,-35 here lately. It froze to her tail and is now a big, huge frozen mess covered in feces etc . I need to remove it from her tail as it is causing her a lot of discomfort .

What is the best way to do this ? We are very cold here with no nice weather in sight for a while and bringing her into a heated area so it will thaw naturally is not an option either.. I was thinking that I should put her in the chute asap and use buckets of warm water on her tail. Will that work, or do you have a better solution ..

I have never seen this before but we usually are not this cold and the calves are usually aborted a little sooner in the season too ..

Thank you .

 

[Anonymous]

Running water is your best bet, assuming your lines don't freeze.if its running it will be above freezing temp. Maybe a line from an on demand water heater?

 

[MO_cows]

Anything you can hang a bucket from and let it soak for a few minutes? Salt water would be slower to freeze. From the sound of your temps a few minutes is all you got. Put her in a small shed and run heat into it somehow? A hair dryer to spot thaw the part stuck to the tail? Geez, what a pickle.

 

[RD-Sam]

How about putting her in the chute and put a heating pad around her tail to thaw it out?

 

[hillsdown]

Thanks everyone. We do have a waterer very close to the chute so we should be able to hook up a hose and run it on her tail. I think the hot water soak is a good idea and will try that first . Ran out of light today to help her but will get her locked up first thing tomorrow ..


What a conundrum to be in , who would think that would ever happen .

Thanks again and I will let you know what worked

 

[jillaroo]

Hillsdown,

Two years ago when it hit -30ish for a few weeks, we had an outbreak of cocci in our calf lot. They had sh*t balls so heavy they could not lift their tails, which exasperated the problem. Anyways, we hauled every affected calf to the calving barn and used hot water to thaw their tails. It took a week to do them all (even Christmas day!) and all the while I kept telling the manager that they would all lose their tails. As soon as the manure freezes on them, their tails will freeze. Low and behold, every calf that had a frozen ball of manure, lost their tail after a few weeks.
Back in the yearling lot where I worked before this place, we would just take a pair of lopping shears and cut the tails off above the frozen ball of manure. If they bleed a bit, tie a piece of baler twine or prolapse tape around the end and then remove it the next day. This is a lot quicker method than trying to "thaw" their tails!
Hope this helps!

 

[hillsdown]

Well we got it all off, 14 buckets of really warm water, and a chisel and hammer . It took some patience on our part and hers but in the end I am sure she is thankful that she now can move freely again. She is a little sore and her hocks are skinned pretty bad but I gave her a good shot of la pen and an anti inflam as well as sprayed her tail and hocks with Blu-Kote .

Jill I am positive she will lose the bottom half of her tail too, the main thing was to watch to see that she can still lift her tail to pee and poop ,as if she couldn't we would have had to amputate it or be back in the same situation again. But she can still lift her tail so that is good news. Just need to keep an eye on her still, so she will not be going out to graze any time soon.

What a freek thing to happen, so I have seen it once in my lifetime and that is enough, I never wish to see this again ever.. ;-)

Thanks again everyone . :tiphat:

 

[CKC1586]

Great news that you got it off! You will need to watch for infection, especially in this weather (yours) cuz that could develope into additional problem. I had a calf that lost the end of her tail and I couldn't get it to heal, kept losing a couple more inches at a time, finally vet "banded" it to stop the process. He said if untreated it would continue up her spine and kill her!

 

[hillsdown]

Thanks for the heads up CKC, I will definitely keep an eye on her . I will know more when her tail falls off and then can band it if I need too.

 

[bannedagain]

Yep hillsdown when I have the frozen shitballs we put em in the chute lay the tail on the anti back up bar and smack with a hammer bust right off they do. Froze of course.

 

[danbrady]

Man, I just showed this post to my son. We grumble over getting out there when it's 30 degrees. I am just really counting my blessings in Louisiana. I have always said this is God's country, and I mean it's more like the Garden of Eden compared to try to keep a cow looked after for what you all have to go through. Frozen wads of poop, and other, who would have thought it, I'm just laughing out loud! Momma used to tell me if you think you have it bad, look around, you can always find someone less fortunate. God Bless ya'll.