Need some advice

[inthebarnagain]

I have never seen anything like this.  We noticed that this cow swelled up about a week ago.  I think she got stung as it started in her umbilical area and now there is edema in her brisket and as you can see in the pictures one side of her abdomen.  She is acting fine.  The neighbor tried to tell me she had ruptured but she is acting too good and hasn't gotten worse so I don't think that is the problem.

 

[DL]

Clearly - despite the fact that she is eating and you perceive that she is feeling fine - something is rotten in Denmark (to quote a famous poet) -  I would think a good physical examination by a vet would be a place to start - what you have here ain't normal and doesn't look like any week old sting I have seen

 

[CAB]

  It's sad to say, but it looks like to me that your cow has had a ruptured hernia. You can get a vet out to look, but chances are that for you to do an operation to fix it, it would be very evasive and costly, so unless your cow is worth a lot of money, more than likely not an option. The cow seems to be feeling well, so I would keep an eye on her and let her raise her calf if possible. Another sad fact is that with the hernia, your cow will not probably pay for the gas it takes to get her to market. Hope she can be comfortable and do well raising her calf. Good luck, Cab

 

[common sense]

Clearly - despite the fact that she is eating and you perceive that she is feeling fine - something is rotten in Denmark (to quote a famous poet) -  I would think a good physical examination by a vet would be a place to start - what you have here ain't normal and doesn't look like any week old sting I have seen

I agree.  DO NOT WAIT!!! It is highly unlikely that this is a bee sting.  DL- Is there any chance that this could be from harware; perhaps a piece of wire worked its way out of the stomach and into the body wall?  I would like to know how far post calving this cow is. 

 

[inthebarnagain]

She hasn't calved yet.  We saw her get bred by the bull in August and never saw another sign of heat from her.  All the swelling is edema, it jiggles like a water balloon.   

 

[DL]

Clearly - despite the fact that she is eating and you perceive that she is feeling fine - something is rotten in Denmark (to quote a famous poet) -  I would think a good physical examination by a vet would be a place to start - what you have here ain't normal and doesn't look like any week old sting I have seen

I agree.  DO NOT WAIT!!! It is highly unlikely that this is a bee sting.  DL- Is there any chance that this could be from harware; perhaps a piece of wire worked its way out of the stomach and into the body wall?  I would like to know how far post calving this cow is. 

With hardware you can sure get heart failure and fluid accumulation - in dependend areas (ie lower parts, brisket, abdomen etc) and actually the same kind of fluid accumulation can occur with anything that causes loss of protein (Johne's disease or liver disease) - usually this type of fluid accumulation is fairly symmetrical and if you can touch the cow you might get what is called "pitting edema" - ie you put your thumb in and a thumb hole remains.

The picture from the back looks lopsided ie more on the left than the right (that could be the picture too) and the side view looks like the abdominal wall is way lower than it should be - BUT someone needs to get their hands on this cow and see what is going on - if could be something really wierd like an abscess (huge) from hardware, or another infection, or a tumor blocking venous blood flow (or probably tons of other things) or it could be a torn or ruptured muscle - and if that is the case the intestinal contents could get stuck in there (like things stuck in a hernia) and you could have a big painful mess on your hands.

If she has a torn/ruptured muscle she is likely in pain - you just don't know it, so you could also be dealing with a welfare issue. You can't have a plan until you know what the problem is.....the cow needs to be seen (IMHO)

Just read that she is still pregnant - then you also need to consider the various conditions associated with pregnancy that result in fluid accumulation, which can be rapid.  Dropsy conditions include hydrallantois and hydramnios

again I believe that the cow needs to be seen asap  (IMHO)

 

[DL]

Is it fluid in or right under the skin  or does it feel like it is in the abdomen? If you push on it does it slosh?? Do you see finger prints??
Can you get her up and palpate her? If you have done this before you should have an idea of the amount of fluid you should feel - it shouldn't be tense and your should probably be able to feel body parts of some sort - she should be sort of near 9 months or so - yes?

Does she have an elevated temp? What is her heart rate?? Resp rate? Can you measure her abdominal girth (write were you do it with livestock chalk) and then do it again tomorrow ...will give you an idea if it is gaining fluid...a sticky wicket for sure, good luck

 

[Chap]

a guess and only a guess, but we had a cow that started to look like this in late pregnancy a year or so ago.  She had a tear in her abdominal wall.  The cow was running on some hills and we believe she may have torn this bit of wall during an ascent up the hill.  As the calf got bigger the tear created a weak spot in the abdomen and the increasing weight of the calf accentuated the problem.  just before calving the cows belly was literally only inches from the ground.  Do no wait in this situation.  The cow will not have enough pressure to complete delivery and during partuition you will likely lose both the cow and calf.  Get a professional opinion, but I would recommend a locker date and selling some burger to your neighbors. 

 

[CAB]

It doesn't matter to me, but I would be cautious about selling burger to neighbors unless you have her inspected. She may or may not pass inspection, but there is no turning back once you ask for an inspection. She'll either pass or fail. If she fails, they will have to tank the cow. You can't say if she doesn't pass, I'll just take her custom kill. Just trying to keep you informed & out of troubles. My sister has a cow just like this, only her's has calved, and the calf is about 5-6 weeks old. She's going to hope that the cow hangs in until she can wean it. Her cow seems to act OK, but I don't know about how much pain she may be in. I hope not much. It is a bad situation no matter how you look @ it. Good Luck, Brent

 

[kanshow]

I didn't really want to post..  we had a cow that was like that.  She was older.  She was still up and eating, active and all that.  Our vet looked at her - thought it was cancer.  We let her calve - she went early -and got a cute little heifer.  We intended to sell/butcher the cow after the calf got a good start but she went down really fast after that.  We had her posted and she had a very large tumor.  I really have no answers/advice for you but just to let you know what we did...    I'm assuming these days you will probably not be able to sell her and most likely the carcass will be condemned.  Maybe it's something else and she'll pull thru.. I hope so! 

 

[inthebarnagain]

She is going to have to wait until Monday, that is the only day we can take them to the yards, our local processing plant has a six week wait.  She still acts great, eating, etc.  But we have a couple stragglers that still haven't calved and have been late for the past two years that are taking a trip Monday so I guess she will join them.  We have a daughter that is a yearling out of her that we have kept to replace her.  Even though we have 30 cows there are some you just hate to get rid of!  Oh well.

 

[linnettejane]

you guys will probably think im crazy....but if she is 9 months pregnant....wow....it looks like the calf is laying in the bottom of her belly.....especially when you look at the butt shot pic.....

 

[doubled]

We had a cow kinda like that and she had a thorn in her belly that had worked its way in there and caused an abcess the doc poked a hole in there and WOW we all flew out of the
barn  Whew-bad- he then dug a hole kinda and we kept it treated, gave her some medicine and she was ok, I sure  hope that its something like that and not something serious. (lol)

 

[OpenRange]

I just had this happen to one of our best donors.  She looked the exact same way and was 14 days from calving.  Ended up taking the cow to the vet.  They decided to do an immediate c-section to take some pressure off of her.  The calf was fine when it came out.  The vet said said the calf would have never came out on its own.  It had dropped down into the side.  Our diagnosis was #1.  The cow had ruptured a blood vessel filling her lower cavity.  There was too much fluid to lance it.  #2 Slight abdominal tear.  The cow is getting better and gradually absorbing some fluid back into her.  The downfall is she will never breed naturally again if she makes it through this whole process.  It's a tough thing to go through.  With this kind of thing the bills add up very fast and the cold water therapy everyday takes up alot of time.  But if she's a money maker for you, try what you can.

 

[CAB]

  JMO, I would try to harvest the calf @ least. Let's say that she was bred the 20th of August, that makes her due the 29th of May. You can harvest the calf and get something out of the deal. Worse case scenario, they tank the cow., you get nothing from that. Even if they don't tank the cow, you're not going to get much for her in her condition. I would definitely try to get the calf. Hope everything goes OK. This is just what I would do, you'll have to do what is best for you.

 

[Throttle]

I had a cow develop something very similar last summer. She was a nine year old that had calved in March and I started to notice some swelling on her belly/side just about weaning time in early August. She was AI'd twice in May and did not stick, so was in the bull pasture until winter. She just calved about 10 days ago with no problems. When I first noticed the swelling I caught her up and had the vet look at it right away. It looked very similar to your pictures but was maybe just a little more on the side and a little less on the underneath of the cow. Vet poked around and said it was an abcess. He couldn't say what might have caused it. He said let it go and it will come to a head and burst. Well, a couple weeks later it was twice the size (like twice the size of a basketball hanging off there) so he lanced it and got a ton of real nasty gunk out, cleaned it good, put her on low dose penicillin schedule that I admministered, and now you can hardly tell that it ever existed. She'll probably find the cull pen at weaning time this year due to age and late calving, but she seems ok other than that. Also had one of our best young cows start to do the exact same thing this winter, but it only got like fist sized, burst, and healed without my intervention.

From all the replies, it could be a number of things, ranging from harmless to deadly. I'd get the vet's opinion before shipping a heavy bred cow just about ready to pay her bill for the year.

 

[SKF]

We had a cow several years ago that during the end of her pregnancy ended up with a lot of fluid. It was from her brisket to under her belly it looked awful just like your cow. We had the vet come out and he said since she was so close to the end of her pregnancy to wait until she calved since she was eating and acting fine before he was to do anything. Sure enough once she calved it all went away in a day or two and we have never had another problem with her. That was six years ago. So maybe its pregnancy related.

 

[linnettejane]

so, any news???  figured out what the problem was??? 

 

[inthebarnagain]

Got the verdict, she has a tumor growing on her abdominal wall so she went to the yards.  We drained the edema off and she didn't look too bad at all so she will no doubt be a Big Mac soon.  She still felt good enough to kick the sorting stick out of the stockyard guys hand and actually ran up to the barn when I called her in to load her.

You just hate to send one off that is good like that as far as personality and consistency.  She was one of those that you didn't really notice because she never gave you problems, just went with the flow. :'(

 

[inthebarnagain]

WE WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER OFF MAKING HAMBURGER OUT OF HER.  Got the check for her and some others that weren't calving on time with the rest of them.  $39.10 total.  Not per 100#, total.  Oh I forgot commision was taken off too and yardage.  Good news is though the others ranged from 59 to 64.50 per 100#.