Threat of ulcers in high yielding dairy herds
Mikey was frantic, as he tried to describe the state that he found his best cow in first thing that morning.
She had no milk and was very âdead in herselfâ, feeling cold to the touch.
She did not appear to want to move too far, and edged away from the other cows, preferring to lie down on her own.
I was running through the usual scenarios in my head as I drove out to Mikeyâs place, ruling out certain problems and sifting through the rest.
Having arrived at the yard, I donned my wellingtons and pull-ups and picked out a light top, as the day was not too cold.
I am always delighted to see that Mikey has a freshly made disinfectant footbath, so that I, and any other visitors, can disinfect our footwear before progressing into the rest of the farm.
Mikeyâs best cow was indeed on the cold side, with a temperature of 98 degrees Fahrenheit, and her rumen was slow in turning.
The cowâs stomachs always remind me of the cement mixer lorries that are constantly mixing their cargo as they drive to a delivery.
These stomachs mix the grass every minute, so that the contents are processed and ready for digestion further down the line.
Her heart was pounding, the respiratory rate was increased. As I examined the abdomen on the right side, I found a âpingingâ over the site of the abomasum.
Something must be amiss here.
I handled her per rectum, and found that she was pregnant.
The faeces in her rectum were discoloured, with a dark hue, and straight away, I knew that this poor cow was suffering from an bleeding ulcer in the abomasum.
It is my belief that in the modern, high-yielding dairy herd, the majority of cows have an ulcer or two in their system, because of the type of diet that they are on, especially in the early part of lactation.
Ulcers are caused by having too low a pH in the abomasum, in other words the contents are too acidic.
This ends up with a burning of the lining of the stomach.
In the vast majority of cases, the ulcer goes un-noticed, and heals.
In some cases, however, clinical signs do appear, and veterinary intervention is needed.
The signs may be just that the animal is off-form, off her food, and back in the milk yield.
If the ulcer happens to be sited over one of the blood vessels that serve the stomach wall, then there is a chance that, if the ulcer develops, the ulcer can eat down through the wall of the stomach and into the blood vessel.
Depending on the size of the ulcer, we may get a trickle of blood or a gusher.
It can take the best part of a day for this blood to make its way to the rectum, where it becomes obvious to the farmer and the vet.
Depending on the amount of blood lost, we may see a cow that is off-form, or one that is lying down, with no energy to move and maybe not much time left to live.
I tend to treat these animals conservatively.
Trying to move them too much puts increased pressure on them, as their oxygen carrying capacity is reduced by the loss of blood.
I try to initiate coagulation at the site of the bleeding, and also provide antacids to increase the pH in the offending stomach.
Textbooks talk about giving blood transfusions to replace the lost blood, but I try not to, as I feel that, by doing this, I am going to increase the blood pressure, and thereby run the risk of dislodging the newly formed clot at the site of the ulcer.
Sometimes, the blood transfusion is inevitable, when big decisions have to be made.
