I have a 15 month old Hereford cross steer who appears to have a gas bubble, or bloat condition, but it looks like it is closer to the rear than his rumen, but it is on his left side. Basically he looks like he has a big gas bubble right on his hip and butt cheek, is this bloat ? Or something else ? Anybody have clue ? He seems to be fine, happy, and eating well, maybe too well, and he did get a real good dose of fresh clover from a round bale dropped from a different farm, probably pretty rich compared to his normal grazing pasture. I'm a newby here, this is a great reading site, I have twelve cows with three of them new calves, and still two on the way, only had one that had to be bottle and bucket raised out of the 12 calves that we have raised, pretty happy with them as bunch. (And yes, they do all have names)
This is in the hip area where you would hit muscle if you poked there with your thumb right? You don't have bloat anywhere but in the hollow rumen area. It must be due to a bruise or other injury, or even snake bite.
Yep, its right on his hip and butt cheek, and is plenty swollen up, but he walks just fine and it doesn't seem to bother him any other than that. I never thought of snake bite, that could be it, its really been dry out here lately and all the critters are coming out of the bush, bears, cougers snakes and all !! I'm just going to keep an eye on him and see what happens. Thanks.
He's pretty much the same after a week, big lump of fluid filled looking thing on his hip, almost got close enough to touch him and see if it was hard or not yesterday. Going to catch him in the headgate on the weekend and get a better look, maybe pull a syringe of it, if it proves to be fluid.
Sounds like a puss bag. He must have a something is there. It might need to be drained at the bottom.
Has this steer had an injection in that area latley? Sounds like you could have an abcess here. If so, you should lance it, clean it out, and squirt some antiseptic in it.
He hasn't had any work done on him in that area, but over the weekend I found a snapped off T-post laying in the pasture, me thinks he may have been horsing around with his buddies and fell on it maybe. I'm going to let him be for another week, and then lance it if it doesn't go down by itself. I also read that Sweet Clover poisoning can have that effect too, I had some round bales of clover just recently and wonder if that might have caused it, but nobody else in the herd was bothered by it.
