By this afternoon, Bessie was having trouble getting up from laying down. By this evening, we were unable to get her up at all. She had managed to "crawl" out of the dry barn and into the mud. We had thought that once she had room that she could get up easier. It didn't take long to realize that was a bad decision...there was no way she was getting up. We milked her by hand into a bottle for the baby, but he still wouldn't take it. Her milk is dark and I really wonder if it tastes right at all. There was nothing more we could do, we got the baby back in the barn and Bessie had to be left outside the door. Before I left for the night, I drove up and checked one more time. Bessie was down, no response. Her legs were straight out and her eyes were dilated and didn't respond to light. I called dad, who was still in the office to come back up...I thought she was dying.
Dad called the vet...at 9:30pm...he said it sounded like she had milk fever and he would head that way to give her a calcium IV. He wanted us to get her rolled up and propped up with a bale of hay to keep her from going down again, which we were able to do. She perked up a little, but wasn't well. The vet arrived and gave her 3 bottles of Calcium solution, checked her temperature and tried to get her moving. He said that usually the cow will get up pretty quick after giving them calcium. Bessie had been dry for several months and her body just wasn't able to keep up with the milk production once the calf was born. We left her for the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment