farmboy
Well-known member
what are symptoms of hardware disease?!? i'mm missing 2 feet of extension cord and have a sick heifer. she's been having a cold for a couple of days before this...
hardware
- Thread starter farmboy
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showstick09
Well-known member
http://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=G7700
Try going there. Maybe it will help you out.
Try going there. Maybe it will help you out.
savaged
Well-known member
How sure are you that she ate the cord?
farmboy
Well-known member
savaged said:
i don't think she did
The Driver
Well-known member
drop a magnet won't hurt if there is no hardware but if there is you will see improvement quickly
OH Breeder
Well-known member
Zach
you can feed her two magnets they sell them at TSC and if there is anything metal it will work. usuallly with hardware you will notice unexplained weight loss. Depending on how severe the hardware will be how severe the symptoms are. The magnets are pretty cheap just use a pill gun to shoot them down.
you can feed her two magnets they sell them at TSC and if there is anything metal it will work. usuallly with hardware you will notice unexplained weight loss. Depending on how severe the hardware will be how severe the symptoms are. The magnets are pretty cheap just use a pill gun to shoot them down.
farmboy
Well-known member
she's better today, we gave her a shot of something last night. i figure it's a combination of weaning+hauling stress+cool room stress. she seemed fine today, holding her head up and eating good and being as nosey as ever when i'm around
justintime
Well-known member
plug the other end of the cord into the plug in... if she lights up... she probably ate the cord!
farmboy
Well-known member
i don't have the other end of the cord to plug in, its gone too
justintime
Well-known member
When I was in college, the University did a study on the two and three year old cows in their dairy herd. This group of females was split into two equal groups at random, and a magnet was put into all the cows in one group, and the other group was not given magnets. Both were maintained on the same ration. Within a few weeks they saw a 12 % increase in milk production from the cows with magnets over the control group. There were no noticeable ailments in either group of cows.
When I saw this result, I thought that the same should hold true for beef cows, except the increase in milk production may be much smaller. I contacted a buyer at a slaughter plant and asked him if they collected magnets from slaughtered cows. He said that the did, and that I could buy them for $1 each. I purchased 36 dozen ( 432 magnets) for $432 and I try to put them into my bred heifers each fall. Since then , I have purchased another several dozen magnets from the same source. They are cleaned, boxed and look like new ones even though they have been inside of cows ... some of the for a few years. I am told that, on average, there is two handfuls of metal in every cow that is slaughtered. If there are sharp points on any pieces, I am sure there are minor hardware situations in many cows that go unnoticed. I have heard that it is quite amazing what they find in some cows... 6 inch nails, bolts, lots of assorted pieces of wire, occasionally a watch or other jewellery, etc etc
If you are suspicious of hardware, put the cow in a chute. Take a bar or a small fence post and put it under the cows belly, and pry upwards on her stomach. If she grunts significantly, she is probably suffering from hardware. This isn't fool proof but it is a quick test that works on most hardware cases. If in doubt, drop a magnet down her, check her temperature, and give her a fairly high dose of long acting Liquamycin ( or similar product). This will help control any infection that is starting. If the hardware has done too much damage, find a priest and give her last rights.
When I saw this result, I thought that the same should hold true for beef cows, except the increase in milk production may be much smaller. I contacted a buyer at a slaughter plant and asked him if they collected magnets from slaughtered cows. He said that the did, and that I could buy them for $1 each. I purchased 36 dozen ( 432 magnets) for $432 and I try to put them into my bred heifers each fall. Since then , I have purchased another several dozen magnets from the same source. They are cleaned, boxed and look like new ones even though they have been inside of cows ... some of the for a few years. I am told that, on average, there is two handfuls of metal in every cow that is slaughtered. If there are sharp points on any pieces, I am sure there are minor hardware situations in many cows that go unnoticed. I have heard that it is quite amazing what they find in some cows... 6 inch nails, bolts, lots of assorted pieces of wire, occasionally a watch or other jewellery, etc etc
If you are suspicious of hardware, put the cow in a chute. Take a bar or a small fence post and put it under the cows belly, and pry upwards on her stomach. If she grunts significantly, she is probably suffering from hardware. This isn't fool proof but it is a quick test that works on most hardware cases. If in doubt, drop a magnet down her, check her temperature, and give her a fairly high dose of long acting Liquamycin ( or similar product). This will help control any infection that is starting. If the hardware has done too much damage, find a priest and give her last rights.
HPSC Show Cattle
Member
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2009
- Messages
- 5
I agree. I had a cow get hardware (fairly certain it was). I did the magnet and a high dose of LA-200. I believe i gave her multiple shots of LA 200 and watched her pretty close. My vet recommended the magnet and it worked. In the end, she recovered and did well. justintime has the right information. I have heard this "protocol" from several people in the past.
forbes family farms
Well-known member
Try these websites they may help. www.caf.wvu.edu/~forage/hwaredis/hwaredis.htm www.helium.com/.../1385317-hardware-disease-in-cattle-prevention-and-symptoms. I hope your heifer comes out of it. One of our cows had it one time and she was better for a couple of days, but the next day we found her dead. We had the vet out and we found a piece of wire in her. It was small but deadly.
2 years ago, I was feeding out a steer for someone that had purchased it at the fair, calf needed 2-300 more pounds on it Plus we had 3 other calves that were waiting for a kill date on all in a pasture. The small steer started to look like he was doing pretty good, putting on weight eating well. Went on a fishing trip for 5 days, had neighbor kid feed for me, get home, 3 calves look great but the 4th smaller steer we were trying to put weight on is standing by the water trough and looks like death walking, wont eat hardly sip water.
Call vet, gives me a run down on what it could be, ask for temp, just a little above normal. He recommends that I get the killer out asap.
Hardware, a 8 inch long 1/8 thick wire had been poking this calf's liver for month, the liver was 4 to 5 times the normal size and had finally failed.
Killer said by the looks of it that the calf must have had that wire in his belly for quite some time.
Meat was non edible for humans, so we sent it to a Tiger rescue facility, the tigers ate it just fine.
I think that as soon as you could get the magnet in a heifer the sooner you should do it if you plan on keeper them or selling them as breeders.
Call vet, gives me a run down on what it could be, ask for temp, just a little above normal. He recommends that I get the killer out asap.
Hardware, a 8 inch long 1/8 thick wire had been poking this calf's liver for month, the liver was 4 to 5 times the normal size and had finally failed.
Killer said by the looks of it that the calf must have had that wire in his belly for quite some time.
Meat was non edible for humans, so we sent it to a Tiger rescue facility, the tigers ate it just fine.
I think that as soon as you could get the magnet in a heifer the sooner you should do it if you plan on keeper them or selling them as breeders.
The signs of hardware depend on where the wire ends up - if it goes into the or near the heart you can heart failure or heart infection - if it goes into the lungs you can get pneumonia - if it goes thru various parts of the various stomachs you can get peritonitis (infection of the abdominal cavity) as well as abnormal function of the gut - the general thought is that you only need one magnet (and two actually decreases the effect - it's physics - I can't explain it) - you can check a cow for a magnet with a compass...magnets are cheap insurance because hardware can be fatal..
FYI if you ever put a magnet in a cow one will do. It is a waste to put more than one in and you run the risk of the magnets becoming attracted to each other and squeezing a fold in the tract, this can lead to failure of the tissue and sepsis. One magnet will do.
