24 Hour Bug Store — A Farm Wife

I was enjoying a rare coffee break with my friend when Farmer called.

“Where are you”?

I really didn’t want to tell him but I fessed up.

“We need some material to strain bugs through. And we need it right now.”

In order to get the pictures of lady bugs, mosquitoes or beetles from your mind, let me explain the bugs.

In our BEBs’ stomachs and ours we have microorganisms – bugs that help digest our food. When a cow’s stomach is off it’s usually due to the good bugs not doing their thing. If she is off, her milk production goes down and so does the milk check. Our cows are all on computer and the computer recognized her movement had slowed down tipping us off to a possible issue. It was determined it was her stomach.

In the past when the bugs get out of whack we would give the BEBs feed with an additive that would enhance and promote bug growth. It could only make the few bugs she had reproduce and could take several days for improvement.

Now, we have a nifty 24 hour “bug store”.

A few weeks ago we had a cannula put into the side of a cow. It’s like an open ended Tupperware container that goes into her stomach. We take the lid off, reach inside and get food from her stomach, strain the bugs out and pump it into the sick cow. This makes recovery much faster because we are giving her a good new dose of fresh, healthy bugs and don’t have to wait for her few sick bugs recover.

I left my coffee break and stopped at the fabric store and picked up cheesecloth to strain the bugs.

So, following is the procedure captured, as well as I could while freezing in the barnyard in city slicker clothes.

This is the cannula with the lid off. See the feed?

The cheesecloth is draped over a pail of warm water. The bugs will be strained into the water and the water will be pumped into the sick cow. The water needs to be warm, close to her body temperature.