OK, so I thought I would bring this up again. Just to update, this heifer that aborted ended up coming up lame on both rear feet for several weeks, maybe even a month. The vet was out, and could not find anything specific, but we treated her with a heavy dose of antibiotics. I thought maybe she hurt herself getting up, but it was surely just a guess. She was AI bred, and stuck. Her back toes then grew really fast, and started crossing over, so I called the trimmer out to do the show heifers in May and decided to have her looked at also. When we put her on the table, this is what he found (mind you, this was May, 7 months after her abortion):
He was amazed that she was not lame right then and there, and that she should have been dead. His speculation was that when she was lame last fall, she had foundered. All of her toe was dead, black, necrotic tissue. He trimmed back as much as he felt comfortable with (pictured above), and left her. When he put the table down and let the cow lose, he sat and scratched his head in amazement about her feet and that now, she was as sound as any other animal!
Now, fast forward to today. Several of our cows have come up sore on the rear. Several swelled, like foot rot, and then went down after antibiotic treatment. So, I had him back out to look at a few, all of them fall calvers due in the next 30 days. The heifer that aborted last year was not sore, but I decided to have her done also to check up on her status, and try to even out her feet (the one toe is extremely short, the outside toe is normal). MOST of the cows that were sore had what he called a "metabolic" hardship grove, with some issues with soft soles because of the ton of rain, then nothing so we now have hard packed soil. Anyway, when we put this heifer on the table, here is what we see:
Obvious hardship grove on her, with the grove being recessed at least 1/4 of an inch! By the hoof growth, we estimate it occurred right about the time of vaccination ON ALL FALL COWS! The hardship grove tells us that the cows had a major metabolic issue at that time that disrupted the growth of the foot. Remember the beginning of this story, the cows all standing under the trees panting and drooling? I fully believe that it was the hardship, because nothing other major happened, like change in mineral or feed or anything! All of these cows have current minor issues with the white line separating, but should grow out of it soon.
So, even almost a year after my vaccine incident, I am suffering the effects (or rather, my cows are). I have not told my vet about this recent visit with the trimmer (the vet is the one that recommends him to everyone), but a few weeks ago we talked about waiting to vaccinate until AFTER October when all of the fall calves are due and should be born. Now, I am thinking, time to change vaccines!
I just thought I would update this thread, just in case anyone else ever runs into this same problem.... live and learn!
