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Downer, unhappy ending

B

Ben H

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 20, 2006
Messages
1,738
Location
Gorham, ME
Yesterday was a tuff day. Monday evening I moved the mob from one paddock to the next. As I was realing up the polywire and putting the real in my ATV I noticed a cow laying down in the new paddock. This is the oldest cow in my herd, born in 1992, first beef cow born on my farm. She was one I showed in 4-H and got Grand Champion with. I was able to scratch her chin, sit on her, anything. Normally she wouldn't stand for this as a grumpy old cow. I knew something was wrong. She didn't want to get up. Finally she got up and she wouldn't use her right rear leg at all. I didin't notice anything on the paddock move. But now she couldn't walk, it was like the leg was floating. She couldn't walk anywhere and I could move the leg around with no reaction. I don't know if she pinched a nerve or what. I felt bad for this old cow being inmobile, wasn't sure if the nerve was pinched or if she broke a leg. I went to the truck and got my gun. I chambered one but decided to give her until morning. The next morning I came back to the field and she was laying down, I couldn't get her up. So I had to do what needed to be done. This was hard because of the history of the particular animal. I had never put an animal down with a bullet before, from what I was told you are supposed to draw a cross from eye to ear. Well, that doesn't work. That puts you in the nasal cavity and puts them in shock. So then I thought a little harder about the anatomy and aimed higher, that dropped her instantly. Now here is the scary part, the part I had to share, when I was pondering weather or not to do it, I thought it would be easier to pull the trigger if it was one of these hard core progressive liberals then this poor old cow. I'm not saying I'm going to go on a spree or anything, let me be clear on that. I just think my poor old cow has more value. Maybe if one of the vets around had a float tank I could have done something. On the other hand, she was old.
 
Ben, sometimes the hardest thing is the right thing. A man must take care of his own problems. I haven't been that attatched to an old cow, but dogs, and an old saddle horse that was like family. Tough.........
 
May I just post my opinion on euthanasing cattle. I have to do this for a living (not in a slaughterhouse I might add) I travel from farm to farm destroying and collecting injured and sick cattle. Anyhow when it comes to shooting a beast I take an imaginary line from left poll to right eye and then from right poll to left eye, aim just above where those lines cross. I was taught to shoot at the point where the lines cross and I wasn't satisfied with the result, aim just above and you can drop them first time everytime. I use a S&W .38 handgun it is very rare I have to pith the animal afterwards. By pithing I mean inserting a long thin cane into the bullet hole and down the spinal column, this causes the animal to bleed internally, this is more usually necessary when the animal has been shot with a humane killer.
I know I might be preaching to the choir here but for anyone who doesn't know the info might be of use.
 
Eye to poll would put you a little higher then eye to ear, and just above that sounds like my shot placement that was effective. I carry a HK USP in a .40 s&w with Federal Hydro Shock hollow points.

When I was in college I did my summer internship between jr/sr year at a large dairy in central Maine doing herd health work. I didn't like the way they were putting cows down, the herd manager didn't carry a gun and used a sledge hammer to the forehead. I emailed the vet who teaches animal health for the dairy program at Cornell and he told me I could mix all the epsom salt I could get into solution and IV that. I did it twice and it worked. I used 2 liters, by the first liter you'll see a twitch, by the second they're gone.
 
I have a customer that insists on destroying his own animals, he uses a 12 ga shotgun. However the number of times I've turned up to collect the carcass and there's still life in it, makes me wanna cry. If a job needs doing, then he owes it to the animal to do it right and avoid unnecessary suffering.
 
I use 10 cc of banimine in the vein. But then I deal with calves up to a little over a month old.

The older calves and cows get 2 shots between the eye and poll. I have heard about the other Dairys around here and some of them are like the one you worked at Ben. I was told that Dairy farmers have to deal with putting more calves and cows down than a beef rancher and they can get numb to the job.
 
Nigel said:
I have a customer that insists on destroying his own animals, he uses a 12 ga shotgun. However the number of times I've turned up to collect the carcass and there's still life in it, makes me wanna cry. If a job needs doing, then he owes it to the animal to do it right and avoid unnecessary suffering.
Click to expand...

He just ain't using the right load..I know an old Game Warden that when he went into the brush to get a wounded or owly grizzly they needed to kill always packed a 12 gauge with an 18" barrel for a stopper gun- loaded intermittently with slugs and OO Buck...Worked for him several times...
 
Oldtimer said:
Nigel said:
I have a customer that insists on destroying his own animals, he uses a 12 ga shotgun. However the number of times I've turned up to collect the carcass and there's still life in it, makes me wanna cry. If a job needs doing, then he owes it to the animal to do it right and avoid unnecessary suffering.
Click to expand...

He just ain't using the right load..
Click to expand...

Yeah that's what my boss said, however getting the guy to change is another matter :)
 
MsSage said:
...I have heard about the other Dairys around here and some of them are like the one you worked at Ben. I was told that Dairy farmers have to deal with putting more calves and cows down than a beef rancher and they can get numb to the job.
Click to expand...

Gee, could it be that cows weren't made to live in that environment? I became pretty numb to it while being indoctrinated in college, but now that I'm a "grass farmer" I see the other side of it. I do prefer free stall barns over tie stall on a welfare standpoint, especially a farm we visited in Vermont, the cows never walked on concrete. Every surface had rubber mats. Before visiting we figured it would be slippery, wrong. The young cows were running up and down the aisles. When I was in school, the average number of lactations for a dairy cow was 2.5.

Quick little background on my mix of beef and dairy. My grandfather milked cows until 1985 and used the buy out to retire. He bought me a pair of working steers then I got into showing dairy heifers. He died when I was in the 4th grade. We bought a few Herefords out of Vermont that created the foundation for our herd. I decided to concentrate on dairy in school, but a few years laster after moving home, only to be called up for Iraq, I returned from there to go a new direction with our existing beef herd, that's when I started marketing grass fed beef.
 
LOL yeah it could be. But who am I to tell the owners how to run their business? I have learned ALOT mostly what not to do or what I will do differently. As for now it pays the bills and I am learning. There are a few differences in a milking Dairy and a calf raiser but calves are calves.
I do know we will be raising them on pasture and not in the calf huts and cage. I like the free pens better than the free standing stall pen. We have the rubber mats in all the barns but the cows do walk on concert to the rotundra and the walk way to the special needs barn.
Yeah they get milked alot. 2 of our barns only do twice day but one does 4 times a day. Depending on the time frame there will be anywhere from 100-350 in each barn. We have right now 165 getting ready to be moved to the birthing pens as soon as 100 have their calves. This is not including 9 pens of ready to breed /bred heifers, heifers waiting to breeding age and calves.
With that many cows I get to see alot of things go right and wrong.

I will say I doubt I will ever get numb to the job of putting a calf down, I still cry everytime. I still shed a few tears when one des after I have been treating it for a couple days.

Yes this is my first "real" exposure to livestock and I thank God for a wonderful teacher in my boss and "shoer" I ask them so many questions and then ask a question on their answer. I think at times I am not learing fast enough but then the Vet Tech tells me I am doing great.

Thank you for your service. What changed your direction for your herd?
 
The change in direction was from proximity to a good market and the increasing demand. Plus, I did a trial and prefered the taste.
 
Awwww. Good thing you have a great market close by. Is there that big of a difference between the grass fed and the grain?
For now I have to settle for grain fed Jersey steers. I still have to wait atleast another year 1 is only 4 months old and the other 2 are 1 month old.
 
I think there is a noticeable difference in flavor, grain fed seems to lack the flavor compared to grass fed after you have tried grass fed. There is also something about the way the fat coats your mouth that is nice. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying grain fed tastes bad. Then the big thing is the health benefits that you can quantify in a lab analysis. Go to http://www.eatwild.com for more info. Because of these benefits, there is an increasing consumer demand and not enough producers meeting that demand.
 
I thought ear to eye crosses were for horses - - - the ear to poll or even a little higher would seem better for cows.

Luckly I have not had to do enough to get hardened to it. I get too attached to all of my animals be it dog, horse or cows. While I don't care for cats my daughter always keeps one around I it becomes part of my protected group.

We have one of the pig factories ( 10,000 pigs in one building devided into 10 rooms ) down the road and they end up shooting about 3 animals a day due to breathing problems. I feel this is a sign the air in the confinment facilities is not good. It sure is impressive to see them ship 1,000 hogs a week and I'm sure this helps keep the price of pork down but at whay price?

One of the local hog farmers finally quit and his health is improving daily! He feels he should have quit several years ago as his whole family has had health problems but when the daughter married and moved away she got better then the son started preaching and moved away and quit having problems. The Mom has already had a kidney transplant and the father now has lung cancer although none of them have ever smoked. I have tried to help out a couple of times when they needed a little help but I could only be in the facility about 10 minutes befor I was very sick so I quit going in the buildings. I had a man call me to do electrical work in a veal barn and I had to pass on the job after about 10 minutes as well.
 
Ben...Sorry for the bad luck...

The Leg deal actually sounds like a hip injury to me. Seems oldercows are prone to it. I had a Gelbvieh cross cow who had twins thre years in a row. during feeding, a younger cow hooked into her and injured her hip...That as basically it. She got around well enough to raise those two..But that was it..

PPRM
 

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