ned more help

[ba]

I have a friend whose heifer got her head stuck in a RiverRoad gate last Thursday.  The heifer is down, moving legs and has no visible abnormalities upon palpation of the spine.  He has been putting her in a sling type cow lift.  I am wondering if anyone in central Indiana has a floater tank like used on race horses.  She has movement in all legs (as of today, 8-21-07), kicks at you when she is in the sling and crawls around in the pen at night, but cannot get to her feet on her own. 

 

[Jill]

We had a steer earlier this year that did this, he had what they call chute shock, his head was stuck under the pipe fence right behind his ear and that cuts off oxygen to the brain and they loose all equilibrium and can't get back up even though they appear to be fine, we let him go a little while and on the 2nd day butchered him.  Can't help you on the tank, but you may check with you vet on the likelihood of her getting up.

 

[afhm]

We've had a few before go down mostly from calving and we have used those hooks that go over their hip bones and a sling under their heart girth and raised them up a couple times of day for a few hours at a tiem and they eventually go up on their own.  It took some time but eventually worked.

 

[CAB]

  Your best chance of finding a tank will be with a university vet school. Good Luck. Cab

 

[DL]

http://www.downcow.com/site/

they may be able to give you names of individuals/farms in your area that have float tanks
check with any big dairies in the area or andy big dairy vet practices

it might be worth a call to your vet to see if the issue is from lack of oxygen to the brain or if there is spinal cord damage - the prognosis may be different - she might recover from anoxia (lack of oxygen to the brain) but she might not recover from a spinal cord injury - a good physical exam can tell the difference

also it may be a little late as time is critical but did you give the heifer any medication?

good luck

 

[ba]

He gave couple rounds of banamine and la 200 we both thought  he should lay off banamine so it wouldnt cause ulcers and trash her gut out
he has  one of regular cow lifts to get her up with and the heiferis about 500-550 wt.
one of local vets does chirpractic/acupuncher on dogs or horses thought  about a maybe on this
when he gets her up in the sling she is sencitive to touch down in her feet like flies are bittingand arches her back up like she is trying to strech the kinks out

 

[Malinda]

ba

I am sending you an email.

Malinda

 

[Joe Boy]

Hoping you have had a good out come.

I saw a show steer get into an electric fence and he never walked again.  I saw a milk cow do the same thing and two days later she was back on her feet.  I have had both good luck and bad luck with this and it all depends on the damage to the spinal cord and nerves.

I had one cow it took me three months to get her on her feet again and we got her up every day and kept her up for a good while.  She got well enough to calf again and we sold her.

Hope you have had wonderful results.