Day 103- Keep Um Coming

     It is official, my arm is done! After palpating about 200 cows in the first three days of my dairy internship I officially can barely move my arm! Today was insanely busy, just the way I like it! We went on a call this morning for a "downer." There are two primary causes for this in dairy cows, most commonly it is from what the call milk fever. This is where the cow is producing so much milk that there is not enough calcium to make her muscles function. Calcium is a vital component for muscle contractions and when cows produce high volumes of milk it uses up the bodies calcium stores. The other is what we call calving paralysis, this is where the nerves that supply the hind limbs are pinched and thus damaged between the pelvic bones and the calf during birth. In both situations, the cow is down and can't get up..."downer" or down cow syndrome.


   After our milk fever case we went to other farm to see a sick cow. There we also saw a few prematurely born calves one of which was the cutest freaking thing I have ever seen, born 2 months early and barely weighed 20 lbs.


     We made our way back to the clinic and were met with a string of trucks with trailers full of cows waiting to be seen! These included a vaginal prolapse....


       A left displaced abomasum (the cow's true and forth stomach compartment which twist around and gets out of place blocking her digestive tract) in which we did a procedure called roll and toggle. This is when you lay the cow down on her back and  listen the the stomach with a stethoscope while thumping her abdomen to locate the abomasum by the sound/pitch difference and then jab it with a needle and tack it to the skin when it's in it's proper location.

     And many many more cases...but I can barely keep my eyes open or my left hand typing so more tomorrow.....