This calf just had emergency surgery.
Why?
Well, I’ll tell you.
She was transitioning from calf feed to Total Mixed Rations.
Basically I guess you could say she went from baby food to eating off the table.
Anyway, there were pellets in her new food and the dust from the pellets caused
her to bloat. We’ve had other calves bloat in the past and while it doesn’t
happen on a regular basis, it is a common issue as far as dealing with it.
The cure or fix for bloating is to insert a tube into their
mouth and down into their rumen – stomach. In doing this, the gas will pass
through the tube and she will be back to normal.
The reason we have to “fix” the bloating is that the
bloating will get more and more severe. If not taken care of a calf could die.
So, our calf manager followed our SOP and inserted the tube.
This crazy calf chewed and chewed on the tube while he was treating her and
expelling the gas. When he pulled the tube out only 1/3 came. The other 2/3 was
chewed off and in her stomach.
Not a good thing.
(Since I'm not savy enough to know how to add a video you can see it on my A Farm Wife face book page.)
Our herdsman who is amazing had to do surgery on the calf.
We have some sort of scope but the camera wasn’t working so he couldn’t scope
her to find out where the tube was. So, he started by prepping her – shaved her,
disinfected her, and numbed her.
He made the first incision – just a small one. He looked
inside and WaLa! It was right there.
He sewed the edge of the cut stomach to the calf’s skin to
keep the stomach situated where he could work on her.
As you can see in the video the part of the tube that was
inside the calf was probably about 3 feet long.
Once the tube was out he sewed her up and sprayed her
incision.
She is doing great now.
Just another day on the farm.
