A couple months ago, I found one of my herd bulls on pasture and he appeared to have hurt his back as he was having trouble walking normally. I got him in and thought that he might improve if he was just rested for awhile. I put him in a small pasture near the barn and even though the grass was lush, he continued to lose weight and his movement remained poor.
Up until now, I have never had any chiropractic work done on any cattle. My wife had contacted a horse chiropractor about one of her horses who was having some issues. The chiropractor said she had never worked on anything but horses, but she agreed to look at our bull. After this session, I became a true believer that this is definitely a field that we need to develop more.
After looking at the bull for a couple minutes, the chiropractor said she thought he may have a hip that was seized up. I was holding the bull by his halter as she made her assessment. She took her thumb and pressed just behind his hip and the bull let out the longest moan I have ever heard and I could actually see relief in his eyes. What happened next was even more amazing as withing 10 seconds of her pressing her thumb on his rump, he lied down and put his head around beside his body and he went completely to sleep. I stood there in complete amazement! He continued to sleep ( complete with his eyes closed) while she worked on his ribs and feet. She also said that he had at least 3 ribs that were out of alignment and she adjusted them with the palm of her hand,
I had to actually wake the bull up and when he stood up, the improvement was very obvious. He walked much freer to the trailer and he continued to improve in the days that followed. He is now almost 100% again and is gaining condition fast. I would never hesitate to use a chiropractor again on any animal that appears to have an injury of this type.