worst sick animal you ever had?

[GMN]

I would have to say mine is right now, only she isn't really sick, just been going on for almost 3 weeks now, a partial downer cow, they have to be the worst. Soon its the end of the road for her, poor thing!

GMN

 

[Ryan]

the worst one i remember is an old cow we had, and she had some brand issues. She was an old cow, roughly 20, and her brand was a pretty big one on her side. Well the scab started to grow and the vet cut it off, but it took forever to heal and had to be cut off a few times. She had troubles keeping weight on and started to smell horrible. It finally healed up after a couple of months. She wasnt really sick, but it was not a good situation for a long time.

 

[Wisteria Farms]

One of our horses had a hematoma-type thing just down from her tail head on her rump... it was HUGE when we saw it (like a great big water balloon) so we called the vet. She said it was due to a trauma of some sort (unimaginable because this was our alpha mare... noone messed with her). Nonetheless, it had to be drained and packed. Each day we had to pull about a foot of packing out and cut it off (leaving a gauze tail hanging) that dripped nastiness. It took well over a week to get it all out... GROSS!! Why that horse stood so still for us to do that is beyond me.... she's such a good 'ol girl. Just shows what earning trust in your animals can do.

 

[rockridgecattle]

cow with plastic twine in the gut. At the time did not know the twine was the problem till about 6 weeks later. By then she was skin and bones. She is alive and well now with a nice calf at side.
And then there is the lumpy jaw one.

 

[I luv herfrds]

GI Jane cow was our worst. Never knew what was wrong with her. She was just really sick, breathing hard, droopy ears off feed. Literally a bag of bones and weak. She was due to deliver any day.
Had her calf normally, but couldn't stand up to get out the "wet" area nor able to reach her calf. dragged the calf around to her head and even as sick as she was she cleaned off her calf and tried to stand to let it nurse, she fell on the calf. Didn't kill it.
After having the calf she got back on feed and got well.
Do cows get pre-eclapsia?(sp?)

 

[Lammie]

Not a cow, but I had a doberman once that had a kennel born illness, I can't remember the name now, and I am having no luck searching for it. Anyway, she went blind, her eyes got milky, and her joints swole up so that she could not walk. Could not find a vet that knew what was wrong. Was finally doagnosed. Vet said it was caused by fleas and she got better finally, although she always had a milkiness about her eyes. She later had a litter of pups and all of them died before they were three months old. Had her fixed after that.

 

[holly heifer]

The very worst of my animal adventures have been:
cancer eye cow( had to shoot her--- half her head was\eaten away) heifer that ate a nail ( she did recover) Horse that had
colic surgery and had all of his small bowel except for 12 feet
removed :shock: ( he is doing great) horse with a ruptered'disk in spine ( was euthanized) horse with "grey
horse melanoma( metastized to bowel ( was euthanized)
premie calf with no antibodies and had immature bowel syndrome( had an $800 vet bill and had to have whole milk for a month :roll: ( she is doing well- she will have a calf this
spring ) Dog with renal failure ( was euthanized) Pony
with broken leg ( 2 surgeries to repair, plate and screws--
she recovered and lived to be almost 30). Bull that had a
severe injury to the inside front claw, it had to be amputated,
he is doing well-- 3 years post removal--- and produces fine
black calves ;-) pony with glacoma ( both eyes were replaced with prothesis) he was blind but did very well and lived
to be 26. This all over 35 year span, I am sure I have not
mentioned all of the past episodes!

 

[peg4x4]

Puppy with Parvo--many shots of fluid under the skin to keep him hydrated--Just sat and held him-That one lived,was a good dog.. That was when Parvo first got started and there was no vaccine.

 

[L Weir]

We had a cow with cancer eye. I wanted to see how long she would live on her own and what cancer actuately does to a being. The cancer was eating away her face and got sticky so we did put her down.

 

[Keren]

Sickest cow I have ever seen came right after she calved. The calf was a true breech, so the vet came and after a hard pull got it out. Calf was good, cow was good, but after about the month the cow wasnt putting on any weight. After two months she was skin and bones, and was starting to smell. Vet came out, said she'd ruptured her uterus through to her bowel. All the manure and urine was pooling up into her uterus and festering. We took the calf off her and she lived for about three more months, with numerous shots. She eventually went into kidney failure, she went blind and her skin turned to hard leather. She was shot in the end.

Similarly, the other one that comes to mind is my doe that was euthanased last month. She also ruptured the uterus and bowel because she got a kid stuck in the pelvis. However, she only lasted a day. I've never seen an animal get so crook so quickly. It was sickening really. I still beat myself up about it. Poor girl.

 

[Chris H]

Sickest that lived -- Had a cow with listeriosis(circling disease) this spring that we pumped water and liquid nutrients into her every day for 18 days before she recovered enough to be able to swallow. We went through 500 cc's of penicillin. We almost gave up on her but as long as she fought getting shots we knew she hadn't given up.
Some of the nutrients we pumped in her was a probiotic & electrolytes in ground alfalfa & sucrose powder mixed in water. She would regurgitate some in a normal attempt to chew a cud but she couldn't chew or swallow so we'd have to pull it out of her mouth or she would aspirate it. We were afraid for a few days she was starting to get pnuemonia due to inhaling the cud, but all the penicillin we were pumping in her kept it from getting too bad.
She recovered & is bred. She did get delayed a month on calving interval since she came down with it 8 weeks after calving and it took about 6 weeks to get recovered enough to start cycling again. Good thing, since we figured it'd take a year to get all that penicillin out of her system so we weren't going to ship her. :lol:

 

[Chris H]

Chris do yall feed alot of sileage? I hear listeriosis is pretty common on farms where they feed lots and lots of sileage as just the main meal.

No sileage, but bought some 'haylage' that was really too dry to have made haylage, so it was hay but a bit dusty. Timing did not work for that to have been the cause anyway.
We actually had 3 cases of listeriosis this spring. The first case the vet said it sounded like listeriosis, but we didn't feed sileage so he thought that was not it. He just chalked the first one up to an old cow that probably had a stroke. We put her down the 2nd day after we separated her from the herd.
When the second cow came down about 2 weeks later, we started agressively treating her for listeriosis and she recovered in about a week.
The third cow came down with it about 2 weeks after the second. She was in a separate lot than the first two. She was in the barn with her calf getting pampered to be shown as a pair this past summer. We caught her symptoms a good 48 hours quicker than the first two. She should have died, but our persistance paid off in this case.
Our vet called a vet at Purdue(I think that was where), no one had any answers as to what and why it happened. All three of the cows had calves from 4-8 weeks old when they got sick. We pulled the calves and they are fine, although the 2 youngest still look like bottle babies.

 

[cowgirl580]

we had an appy gelding (dumber 'n a box of rocks) cut the back side of his ankle just above the hoof. it killed all feeling in his foot. he did a really good 3 legged hobble though. shot him after a few months when told he wouldn't recover. not sure how he did it. don't know if it was wire, rebar, or rip-rap. he was pretty good with cows amazingly.