Wish us luck. Sudden death of cow

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Patches

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Just found a cow dead in the shed on the evening check around. She was in the feed shed, not the cubicle. No signs of her struggling to get up, which would rule out fighting or her having been knocked down by the others. Looks like she just dropped.

We have to notify the vet of any sudden deaths who come out to take bloods and evaluate said cow. Let's hope and pray it's nothing notifiable. Not allowed to move her at all, until he's been.

She can't have been dead all that long, as she's still warm, but her body has blown up like a balloon. She was only five too, so not an old cow.
 
Thanks Spiral. We don't often suddenly lose a cow. Infact, apart from one that haemorrhaged post calving, dying before the vet could come and treat it, I don't think we've lost a cow to a sudden death in a good few years.
 
Oh god! I hope its an isolated incident, do cows have heart attacks?
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Our landlords have lost a couple like that. One went in the field - again, not an old cow - apparently it was toxic mastitis that killed her. In the morning she was there, in the afternoon, she wasnt. Another one just keeled over in the barn whilst eating her silage. Plus, my OH and were walking up on the Downs last year, and there was a young bullock dead in his field - warm, like yours, and yet very very bloated.
I dont think its that uncommon, really! Very sad
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I dont think its that uncommon, really!

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Being a farmer's wife, I realise it's not uncommon for cows to suddenly die. I was just meaning that it doesn't happen to us very often and when it does it always involved a vet visit to ascertain the cause of death in case it's anything notifiable.

The last sudden death we had, a good few years ago, was Lead Poisoning. Someone had dumped some very old roofing felt over the hedge in the wooded area and she must have licked it. She was running around in tight circles in a panic, crying out. She must've had a heart attack from the shock of going blind etc and just dropped.
 
They generally bloat up after death. Bubbles come from their nose. I would assume it's gases in their stomachs. It's just not nice to see them like that. There are tales of cows that actually explode after death, but that's never happened to us.

She's not bloated this morning, so the gases must've escaped. Waiting for vet.
 
Poor girl, that sounds awful
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I didnt mean to cause any offence; I realise you are probably far more knowledgeable than I! Its just that from some of the posts I got the impression people were thinking there was something really sinister about the death, when in actual fact it is not uncommon in farming. I was on the train a couple of months and there was a dead sheep in the middle of the field, legs stuck out, with its little lamb nosing it
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It's very sad that they can die like this, but I wouldnt have thought there is much to worry about in the sense of the rest of your herd.
 
Nope, I think you're right.

Luckily, they're all winter housed now, so a poison in the field isn't a possibility.

Maybe a mouse ran out of the silage trough in the feed shed and frightened her to death.
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LOL i suppose it wouldnt be unheard of!
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They are silly things, our cockerel frightened one nearly to death the other day, just by jumping up onto their fence!
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Reminds me, actually - I was up the farm with my OH whilst he was on the JCB, looking at the cows (and their Simmi suitor
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) in the barn. Something didnt seem quite right....I looked closer, and one of them had managed to get herself in the feed trough! She was just stood there, surrounded by silage, munching away...thing is, we couldnt figure out how she had got in there, as the bars are all about 1 ft part, and 4 ft high! Plus there were none broken
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A show jumping cow, perhaps???
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Cows, well especially calves , regularly get themselves into feed troughs.

You can see where all of the phrases come from, "silly cow" and so on.

We're always amazed at how rubbish the fencing of some farmer's fields are. Their stock must be so well behaved, because ours would get out of some of the shoddy fencing we see.

Funnily enough, I've had to call a neighbouring farmer up this morning because his stock our in our fields....for the fourth time in a week!
 
Haha I can believe that! I went on a cow round up last year with the guys from the farm (their fault - poor fencing!) - cows had gone some 4 miles across the hills, and through various other bits of very poor fencing! Plus there was an 'accident' a couple of years ago with some heifers - neighbouring farmer's little belted galloway bull decided to go through the fence!

Cows also have no respect for electric, do they? (well, unless it was mains
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) I've got ellie's paddock running on a tractor battery, and they just plough straight through it!
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Cows have absolutely respect for their own steel wire electric fencing, run off a battery. Horse tape is a different mater.
 
Hope it's nothing serious Patches. One of my friends has just lost 14 of his suckler cows as they failed the TB test. That was a month ago and he still hasn't had his compensation cheque and he can't sell his calves. Luckily he had just sold a horse otherwise he would be in financial troubles. Wish this TB business would get sorted out.
 
Oh that's a shame. Poor farmer.

We just had our herd done and thankfully we had no reactors. Is he shut down for 90 days and then has to be re-tested? They can't re-test any sooner because testin too often will make more react that wouldn't normally.
 
I went to a farm this morning and they'd had 4 die overnight in the cubicles - one was a 6th calver but the others were all pretty young and all of their cattle are in pretty good nick. Hope it's nothing serious for you both.

I also served one yesterday, nobody around so left her in the crush and when the farmer came out to let her out she was dead! Hope it wasn't me
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The farmer across from us leaves cows in the crush for the AI man and he's supposed to leave them in there afterwards. I've seen some in his crush when I've fetched the kids from school of an evening. We have the same AI man, and he's often here at breakfast time, so you'd assume he went there as a next call.

Interestingly, we don't have ours done in the crush, never have done. Ours are always done in a cubicle stall. Duncan steers them in the stall, leans on them and holds tail across to the side. Our crush is only used for foot trimming, bottling an argumentative cow and for some vaccinations.
 
Oh dear - at least nothing serious came back. I found a cow a few weeks ago. Had milked her in the morning but was dead by the afternoon milking. Sometimes it just happens - strange that she was such a young cow though.
 
Yup, they're normally older when they suddenly die or heavily pregnant/calving complications to die so young.

She was a nice cow too. Shame.

None of the others are ill and vet was happy that it wasn't anything contagious and is sadly just one of those things. Poor girl.
 
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