A freaky happening on the dairy farm.
 

This happened a week ago Sunday, but just now getting time to write about it.
#78 is one of our best milking middle-aged Holstien cows. Not a show winner by any means but a nice milkable udder and lots of milk. One of those cows who never gives you a problem, just walks in twice a day and gives her all.
Sunday evening(my evening off, of course), I get a frantic call from my brother saying that #78 is streaming blood from her udder, and although it just happened, she has lost so much blood that she is weaving as she walked up the lane to the barn. I jump in the van and run over to the farm(about 1 mile), but by the time I get there, she has lain/fallen down on the concrete in front of the dairy barn door. There is more blood running out from under her and pooling in the lane than I have ever seen outside of a live animal. She cannot get up, her skin is cold to the touch(not just her extremities, her entire body), though it is a warm, muggy July day. Her head is drooping and her entire body looks shrunken in on itself.

She is laying on the bleeding area, but we manhandled her over on her side so we could get a good look at it. The blood is just spewing out in a thick stream, but the hole was only about 1/2 inch wide. Just happened to be directly in the big vein that runs into the foreudder. Had my brother pinch the vein on either side of the puncture, while I called our vet(she is the best vet around, but she is an hour away). After hours of course and the vet talked us through sewing both sides of the vein shut with fishing line(after running it through alcohol). So we finally got the bleeding stopped.

#78 looks all but dead, but if I tickle inside her ear, she will wiggle it away from me. My younger siblings have all been laying draped on her to try and give her body heat. We got the tractor and the hip hoists(never had to use them before but sure glad we had them this time), got her lifted and took her out to lay on grass rather than the concrete.

Got antibiotics in her to try and keep the dirty nasty hole from abcessing if she lives, gave her vitamin B and Red cell to try and put back into her some of what she had bled all over the holding pen and up the hill. Had 5 bags of lactating ringers on hand, but the vet said she would need at least ten to try and replace all the fluids she had lost. Also needed an entire bottle of iron injected and of course Banamine for the pain.
Had the Banamine but had to drive to the vets for the iron and more bags of lactated ringers.
Of course it is now past 11:00 pm, and the only vet I can get into is mine who is an hours drive away(I know her home number). So after getting two bags of lactated ringers into her, I leave #78 in the capable hands of our relief milker and my family to continue trying to keep her warm and rehydrate. I get back at 1:00 am and relieve them. So far, #78 has managed to stagger a few feet before collapsing. And she is showing a bit of irritation when I start a new bag of ringers and have to poke her in a new spot. She is rather fond of her blanket and sleeping bag, I imagine. She allows me to reposition each time they slip. Under them, she has a much higher body temp than before, though still too cold.
By 6:00 am, she has had all her lactated ringers, the entire bottle of iron, has managed to move herself a few times, and actually got up and walked a few steps at the last injection. I went to bed at 6:30, after watching her take a few bites of alfalfa. Got up at 8:00 and she was standing and walking with no weaving. Wouldn't let me give her any more ringers, and she was drinking, so I let it go. Kept her up by herself for a few more days, but she fretted without the herd, so the last few days she has been back with the herd and is supremely happy. She is up to 4 gallon a day now. Not where she was before by a long shot......but I wouldn't care if she gave nothing as long as she pulled through!
I carried away an entirely new experience with me that day. What did #78 carry away with her?? A newfound fear of me and needles.:rolleyes:

The vet said since she was only 3 months along, its *possible* she retained the calf.....but I'm not holding my breath.

Wow!
Let's hope that's a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

We had some strange occurrences in the 40 years we milked cows but never anything that extreme.

Congratulations on saving her.

Not too uncommon to see a big uddered cow cut a milk vein when I was in dairy practice. If you catch them early enough you can use clothes pins or vise grips to hold the vein off until it can be sutured. When they're on their feet and still strong, it can be a challenge to reach under there and sew up the vein.

Glad you saved her. Those "no muss no fuss" cows that just walk in, give a decent amount of milk with no problems are the cows that make dairying fun.

Good going, 78!

Jennifer

Wow, what an ordeal.did you ever figure out what she got into?? Sounds like you all did a great job of saving her. Proud of you!!!!!
P.J.

Good for you and the cow. A note about fishing line. I had to cut one side of a goats udder out this spring, 11 PM, fishing line was all I had. It held wonderfully. I left very lone tails on the line and in a week cut the knot and pulled the stitches out. If anyone needs to stitch a would remember to not stitch the bottom tight so it can drain out..............Joan

Great save!

Wow, I was fearing the worst, I just love a happy ending.

I have stitched a goat before but never a cow. Our milkhand has stitched cows before, so she stitched while my brother and I kept #78 from falling back onto her stomach and squishing the milkhand(tiny lady). Frankly, I was a bit freaked out by the idea of stitching an udder........Would have done it if she hadn't been there, but as she was too tiny to hold the cow and volunteered to stitch......I let her!

I looked *everywhere* for what cut her and never found it. She was only in one small section of pasture too. It looked to be a small three-cornered tear......like from barbed wire......but I couldn't find anyplace on the perimeter fencing and the inner fencing is all electric tape.

I was thinking that if it had happened earlier, we would have just found a dead cow at evening milking........

Been relief milking for 8 years, milking our own for two years now. Never had that happen in any of the herds.

Ozark Jewels,
Good job, we never had the milk vein cut, but we had several over the years cut a quarter on the old hedge thorns making a cut like you described.
Glenn

Great fix Emily! I've never used fishing line but have used dental floss on several occasion for animals and people. It seems to be easy enough to knot and is very pliable while pre-sterilized. In fact, I keep a hook needle and some dental floss in the barn just incase one of my kid's prone to get cut horses shows up bleeding.
Sounds like you're well on your way to getting her back into the string at full prod.

yikes glad everything worked out ok
what a crazy night for you and her though!

Emily, you're my hero!!!!! I'm sure you're #78's too.

Well done Emily - and to all your helpers including the vets:) I like to think I'm pragmatic but not sure how I would have handled that one - probably gone into panic mode first and pulled myself together second thereby wasting precious time.

I've never had to sew an animal up but keep dental floss just in case it happens. Handy for the teeth too!

Cheers,
Ronnie

I used dental floss in the past on a severely torn up goat, so that was the first thing I thought of as well. Ran the idea by the vet and she said it would work, but if I had fishing line, that would be better. Amazingly enough, we did(none of us fish), so that is what we used.
Oh forgot to mention, I did of course warm the lactating ringers to just above normal body temp before administering.

And I apologize, looks like I've been saying it wrong all my life. Guess it is Lactated Ringers, Not "lactating"..........guess its not giving milk.....LOL!!

Emily, I'm a little confused. Either term is new to me. What are these "ringers" you're talking about? Thanks, Jamie

From online dictionary:

lac·tat·ed Ringer's injection (lkttd)
n.
A sterile solution of calcium chloride, potassium chloride, sodium chloride, and sodium lactate in water, given intravenously as a systemic alkalizer and as a fluid and electrolyte replenisher.

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It is a people IV, but in dehydrated animals it is used subcutaneously. Very, very, easy to administer by using a disposable IV kit. You can buy both at the vets or online. Really, anyone can do it. Terribly important when you have a sick animal who won't drink. If they are dehydrated, they cannot heal. Many animals become sick, but then die even though being treated simply because a dehydrated body cannot heal.
This is something I always keep on hand.

I always warm the fluids in a hot water bath(we have *very* hot water straight from the line in the dairy barn) before administering to a sick animal. I had a 5 gallon bucket of extremely hot water sitting by my side all that night with bags of ringers floating in it. Last thing I want is to lower their body temperature.....And of course with her the goal was to bring her body temp back up as quickly as possible.

Great save!!!! Heard a few stories about torn milk veins around here before. Strangest one was a guy useing corn fodder to beddin the cows. A stiff stalk jabbed a vein when she layed down. Lucky he was milking at the time and seen it happen. Pinched it off and got the vet to stitch her up.



One thing I would worry about is blackleg now. Hate to say it but keep her on a low dose of pennecillin if you have had any past outbreaks of it. Hate to throw the milk but it s better then a dead cow. I lost a jersey 2 months after a deep huge puncture wound in the arm pit area between the front leg and chest. She was all but healed for a little tiny weep hole. But we also done some excavating work to on the farm and stirred it up. A week before she died I stopped the penncillin. The poor cow was like yours hated me and needles by that time.
Bob

Update on #78.
She is back at her usual production level now, looking healthy again.
She did slip her calf as was expected, but as she was only three months along, only noticable was a little fleshy discharge.
The wound is only a very small knot on the foreudder now. Only noticable if you know what you are looking for.
All in all, I couldn't be happier with the end result.:)
I expect she will breed back after the bull is returned to the dairy herd in December.

Only critter sewing I've done was on a tom turkey. Apparently something went after it and it flew through a barbwire fence, ripping off one side of the breast skin/feathers. Had a neighbor come over to hold it. I used the string which comes off feed bags and a large curved needle. Soaked in rubbing alcohol and then applied vasoline to it. Washed wound with rubbing alcohol and double stitched up. Seemed to work fine, although it continued to explore a back field and all I found was feathers that time.

Yep, hard to stitch that type of incident back together.:o