What effect did plastic bags have on my steer?

[LittleRedHen]

Today I have been doing some "Spring cleaning" and I ran across where we had left the stomach of our steer from last year. We had butchered him at 10 months old and he was just a Jersey steer. We got maybe 50-60 lbs of hamburger off him (just meat, no bones) I figured it was a low amount of meat but expected when he was grassfed and a Jersey at that.

Well, back to the stomach. I went to move it and I realized that there was plastic bags inside! I had to do some examining and pulled all the insidesout of the stomach (which is now really hard) but there were quite a few plastic bags in there! I'd say at least a dozen up to 1 1/2 dozen white plastic bags like you get at walmart. And there is one more thing in there that I am not sure what it is, but it actually resembles a possible dog collar?

He had always been in fine health to me as a novice. Obviously I had never seen him eating plastic bags. He wasn't out on pasture but he was tethered with us moving him as needed to new grass.

The only thing I can think of was there was one incidence when he got off his line when we had gone away for two days and he was in our tent/garage area when we got home. He had destroyed my baby stroller by trying to eat the fabric but he wasn't successful because it was attached. I hadn't thought about him getting into anything else. He must have found the bags then and that was way back in June. We didn't butcher him til November.

Could this account for his low weight or is that normal for a grass fed jersey steer at 10 months old? I don't plan on doing any more steers/cows but I was just taken back by the amount of trash in his gut and not really sure why it didn't pass out... or how he managed to live with it. I am really not sure what to think except that I had failed miserably when it comes to animals that Moo

[Cotton Picker]

Originally Posted by LittleRedHen

Could this account for his low weight or is that normal for a grass fed jersey steer at 10 months old? I don't plan on doing any more steers/cows but I was just taken back by the amount of trash in his gut and not really sure why it didn't pass out... or how he managed to live with it. I am really not sure what to think except that I had failed miserably when it comes to animals that Moo

I had a young Jersy heifer that died as a result of ingesting clear plastic wrap.... I would say that the plastic bags in your steer's system may have been a contributing factor in his poor rate of gain...... However, I would say that you were fortunate.... In that your steer didn't end up like my heifer...... From my experience... And now yours too..... I would strongly suggest that folks with cattle do everything they can to keep plastic bags, wrap, etc... Away from their calves....

Link for Depraved Appitite.......

http://homepage.eircom.net/~progers/picaurin.htm

[gone-a-milkin]

And to think, people say that GOATS will eat anything!

Pretty hard to keep every stray plastic bag from the cows though. The wind just carries them straight onto the fences, esp. in Springtrime.

[LittleRedHen]

Originally Posted by gone-a-milkin

And to think, people say that GOATS will eat anything!

Pretty hard to keep every stray plastic bag from the cows though. The wind just carries them straight onto the fences, esp. in Springtrime.

I have goats which aren't too bad but that steer wanted everything he could wrap his tongue around

[G. Seddon]

And don't forget the baling twine!

[LizD]

Hi, forgive me if I am a little confused, but surely he was not left on a 'line' unattended for two days? So my question is that I don't understand how he 'got off' and into your tent/garage? Was the person you had looking after him, that inattentive?