So I saw my first autopsy today (in real life, I'd seen photos) and it was pretty interesting. We had a cow at work that calved (twins, backwards) on June 19th. She had been really unsteady on her feet, thin, and had a nasty, pusy, white discharge running out of her vulva. One day she would be doing really well, eating, up and around, wanting to go out of her pen (manager chose not to let her outside, but she was in a pen). The next day she would be not passing any manure, refusing to eat, giving barely any milk. She would go in cycles. They were going to ship her last Tuesday but decided not to because she was doing really well (bad decision). This past week she was up and around, eating, passing more manure than she had been. We were drenching her with alfalfa, ketogel, calcigel and some other odds and ends of things. Temp was fairly low, barely 100 but she was very upbeat/friendly - acting. Vet came out a couple times but didn't have a clue. This AM when I came in to milk she was dead. She looked OK, was in a sleeping position except for her front feet which were curled like she was trying to get up front feet first and the mats were disturbed like she had struggled. The autopsy was unbelievable. About a third of her lungs were dead tissue, her rumen and omasum were "dying"-there was quite a bit of dead tissue. Liver, lungs, heart, spleen had all been bleeding. Part of the intestines were pretty nasty. It was pretty gross, but like I said, interesting. Vet concluded hardware and/or ulcers but couldn't find any hardware (to me, she didn't look like a hardware cow and I have seen plenty of those). So anyways, it was an educational day.