Up After Nine Days

[GRTiger85]

Just thought I would share my recent experience for those unlucky few who find themselves in the same situation in the future(Hopefully Never Again!). Found a heifer in the morning that had been having a calf that night and it got hip locked on her. Thought she was dead driving up (looks like it in the picture). Got the caIf pulled and the vet called, luckily he is a family friend and was out in less than an hour from when I called him on a Saturday. He got the Prolapse put back in and headed back to his sons basketball game and left me my game plan. Had never dealt with one that was down so It was a learning experience. Went and bought a hip lift and put her on it a couple times a day starting out and worked up to 5 times a day. Only used it if she would put weight on her back legs to support herself.



She got to where she would try to make a break for it when you lifted her up, and started standing taking all her weight and leaving the lift chain with slack in it, so I was hopeful but was still pretty skeptical that she would get back up anytime soon.



Got up on 9th day that she had been down and went down to feed her for the morning and do her morning lift and this is what greeted me when I pulled up. Needless to say I was pretty happy that morning. I read it on here several times, but as long as they are trying you should to....never know when they will just magically get up.



She still has a ways to go to get back to normal, but compared to where she was about a week ago she's come a long way.

 

[Putangitangi]

Well done! Good post, thank you.

 

[branguscowgirl]

:clap:

 

[Nesikep]

That's some good news... we always have lots of bad news here at this time of year... Too bad about the calf of course, but if you can save the cow that's always nice

 

[GRTiger85]

Ya, losing a calf always stinks but losing both of them would have been just awful. She's a registered home raised AI heifer so I have a lot of time invested in her, and a lot more time now after all the attention she has needed. It's been a learning experience for sure.

 

[kucala5]

That is really good news and I know the relief you felt. We were thinking to use the hiplifter for our mama that got down this week, but thankfully she's up after a couple shots of Dex and 3 days. Still wobbly but up. Do the think the hiplifter is hard on the cow? Several locals told us it is, but obviously it beats the alternative. Another local told us to fashion a sling of sorts to go under her if we needed to lift her. Now our challenge is getting her to take her baby. I'm afraid to put her the shoot just yet because of her instability. It is all worth the effort. We didn't have much hope at midnight Saturday for the cow or calf.

 

[Nesikep]

I found slings under them don't work at all for gettting them up.. even used big wide 4" ones. The hip lifter is far superior, I'm not sure if it's the best thing out there, but I haven't heard of better or simpler methods

 

[GRTiger85]

She got several large doses of Dex as well, but I think the hip lift helped. I had reservations when I searched it online seeing it was about 50/50 on peoples opinions of it either helping or hurting. I tried to research as much as I could on it and found a couple helpful videos on youtube to help learn how to use it properly. I figured since she was already down I didnt have much to lose so I used it. I think the biggest thing is using it correctly, if they cant support any weight on the rear legs then its not worth doing and you will do more harm than good. If I lifted her and she didnt support her rear legs I immediately let her down and tried again a couple hours later. My vet told me not to try to use any type of sling because all the ones he had ever seen that had a sling put under them just gave up once the sling was put on.

 

[kucala5]

This was a helpful thread. Thanks guys.

 

[Tim/South]

You did well. I agree, as long as they are trying then so should we.

 

[bigbull338]

weve had down cows and used the hipplifters on them to lift them up till they either got up on their own or died.to answer the q is hipplifters good for a cow the answer is yes.because using them will save a cows life if she isnt serverly injured or paralized.

 

[talltimber]

Congratulations. Good work, and thanks for the post. I've never saw one in use myself.