A few years ago, one of my donors was found dead at the ET center where I do my flushing. It appeared like she had been walking on a trail to the water fountain and simply dropped over dead. When a post mortem was performed, they found that a small abscess on her rumen had broke . This abscess was probably due to an old hardware injury. The vet said that animal's body oftentimes is able to isolate the infection from these kinds of injuries and they oftentimes can live for many years and appear to be perfectly healthy. That certainly was the case with my cow as I had seen her a couple weeks prior to her death and she looked as healthy as she possibly could. The vet said that when the abscess had broke, she would have probably died within a few seconds of the infection entering her blood system. He said that this happens more often than many realize. Oftentimes a person will find a cow dead that appeared to be in very healthy condition a few hours before, and this is oftentimes a possible cause of their death. Over the years, I have had this happen a few times. A cow or bull who appeared perfectly normal is found dead a short while later... and it just appears that they toppled over.
