The Last Ditch Effort
The Last Ditch Effort
D. E. Larsen, DVM
“Bob, this is the third time I have checked this heifer,” I said. “Everything I feel is normal. Are you sure you’re not messing up with the breeding? I mean, your semen tank has adequate liquid nitrogen?”
“We are using the same semen on all of these heifers, and everybody else is pregnant,” Bob said, shaking his head a little. “I have Erma and Cara both watching every move I make when we A-I one of these heifers. If something was being done wrong, I would be told about it.”
“I have checked her 3 times, and the active ovary has been the right ovary every time. It could be that she has a segmental aplasia in her ova duct, and I’m just not feeling it. Or it is too small of a defect for me to feel.”
“Can you fix that sort of thing?” Bob asked.
“No, I don’t think you can fix that in the cow,” I said. “Maybe a fancy surgery over at the college, but I don’t think so. The other problem is that sort of a defect is probably heritable.”
“But you could probably have an ova duct that was plugged from an infection or something,” Bob said.
“Yes, I guess that sort of thing is possible. I’m not sure how you fix that sort of thing. And then you get back to the inherited defect possibility. You don’t really want to perpetuate that sort of thing in your herd.”
“I really want this heifer pregnant,” Bob said.
“Have you tried breeding her with a bull?” I asked.
“I have a good A-I match for her. Do you think there is anything we could do?”
“If the right ovary is the dominate ovary, and it is the one that ovulates every cycle, and she doesn’t get pregnant. The one simple way to make the left ovary active would be to remove the right ovary.”
“Do you think that would work?” Bob asked.
“It would work, but the better question is, do we want to go to that extent. I have told you before if you work hard to get a slow breeder pregnant, you have her to work on her and a couple of her daughters in a few years. Infertility is very heritable.”
“Okay, let’s do it,” Bob said. “If it doesn’t work, nothing is lost. Maybe you will be able to see if there is a defect when you do the surgery.”
“Maybe I would be able to see a defect. But if it is big enough to see, I could probably feel it. We could send it in for histopath. It might be helpful to know if it is an inherited problem.”
***
A few days later, I returned to Bob’s place to do an ovariectomy on the problem heifer. I had done it once in school on a mare. That procedure was done with a flank incision. We used a tool called an ecraseur that cuts the ovaries off and controls bleeding with a tissue crush, similar to an emasculator.
The are many procedures for spaying heifers as a herd procedure to enhance weight gain when on pasture or feed. Some of these are done with special instruments through a vaginal incision. On this heifer of Bob’s, my plan was to use a short flank incision on the right flank and ligate the ovarian vessels and the oviduct at its attachment to the uterus. There would be no need for speed because there are not a hundred heifers waiting behind her.
***
“Are you ready to do this, Bob,” I asked as I unloaded my stuff from the truck.
“As ready as ever, I guess,” Bod said. “Even if the right ovary is not the problem, she should still be functional with the left ovary. Am I correct in my thinking on that point?”
“You are correct. My thinking is that she will get pregnant on the first breeding after this surgery. We will see if my guess is correct.”
“Guess!” Bob said. “Are we doing this on a guess?”
“An educated guess,” I said. “At times, that is the best we can do in this business.”
“Okay, I understand the situation. Let’s just get it done.”
With that discussion completed, I clipped and prepped the right flank. I had never approached the ovary in a heifer, but in the mare, it was right there at the incision.
I made a short incision, less the six inches long, high on the right flank. I carefully incised the peritoneum. that last thin layer of tissue before entering the abdomen. Air rushed into the abdomen, and the intestines settled into the lower abdomen. There hung the right ovary.
If I was using an ecraseur, I would be done in a couple of minutes. I ligated the ovarian pedicle. Then I ligated the oviduct at its attachment to the uterus. I removed the right ovary. There was no rethinking the decision at this time.
“What do you think?” Bob asked as I was closing the incision.
“I don’t see any abnormalities. That is a good thing. That means there is no inherited segmental aplasia. It will be interesting to see what the pathologist has to say.”
“Yes, I been thinking about that,” Bob said. “I don’t think it matters. It will just be another expense, and what’s done is done. It will either work, or it won’t.”
“You are right there,” I said. “But five years down the road, if another question pops up on one of her offspring, it might be good information to have.”
The histopath report showed extensive scarring in the oviduct. That was good news for Bob, even if the source of the scarring was unknown.
***
“Has it been two months since we did the surgery?” I asked Bob as he was running the heifer into the chute.
“She cycled only a few days after her surgery. There must have been some prostaglandin release with the surgery. Anyway, I bred her on that cycle, and she hasn’t cycled again. I am hoping you were correct in that educated guess. It’s been forty days since I bred her. I guess I might be a little anxious.”
We secured her in the chute and started a rectal exam. I carefully retracted the uterus and palpated the left ovary.
“She has a nice large CL on the left ovary. That is the first activity on that ovary that I have felt.”
“What about the pregnancy?” Bob asked impatiently.
I ran the length of the left uterine horn through my fingers. A forty-day amnion slipped through my fingers.
“Yep, right at forty days,” I said. “Looks like I don’t get fired this time.”
“I could have lived with an open heifer,” Bob said. “Your thought processes just sort of amaze me at times. I wonder how many heifers get sent down the road because they have a dominant ovary and an occluded oviduct?”
“This wouldn’t be a practical procedure on a commercial heifer. They have to fit in the producer’s program, or they go down the road. I would never recommend anything different.”
***
This heifer delivered a nice bull calf almost 8 months later. She remained a productive cow in Bob’s herd for many years.
Photo by Spence Selover from Pexels
The Change of Life
D. E. Larsen, DVM
“Jim is out front and wants to talk with you about that radio transmitter tower that he was talking about yesterday, Sandy said. “He says he has some new information.”
“Jim, how are you doing today,” I said as I offered my hand to shake.
“Sandy says you have some more information.”
“Yes, I found a tower that we could lease space on for a repeater,” Jim said. “This is a hundred-foot tower on Marks Ridge, and we can get a space at the forty-foot level for twenty-nine dollars a month. That removes all the upfront cost for tower construction that I was talking about yesterday.”
“Jim, I know you are excited about this repeater, but I’m not sure that it will help me out a lot. For the initial expenses and then monthly tower fees, it just seems like too much expense for my needs.”
“Don’t worry about the monthly tower fees,” Jim said. “We will have plenty of people using the service to cover those costs. They will also allow us to repay the money you put out to get things started. And then when we are at full steam, we will have a steady revenue stream for income and to cover any operating and maintenance expense.”
“Check with me next week,” I said. “I am going to talk with a couple of the loggers and forestry guys around here to get a feel for their experience with the repeaters they use.”
“Okay, but don’t take too long to make a decision. I have to push ahead, and if I come up with another investor, I will have to go with them.”
“Don’t let me slow you down, Jim,” I said. “I have to be careful with my capital. A veterinary clinic in a small town doesn’t make a fortune.”
***
Every Tuesday, I attended a Rotary lunch meeting. It gave me a good break from the office, and I could mingle with other business people in town. This Tuesday, I grabbed a seat beside Jack. He would be the most knowledgeable about the use of radio communications in the area.
My experience in the Army was closely tied to radio and radar reception all over the world. I knew from that experience that the tower and repeater Jim was pushing would have definite limitations in the many little valleys around Sweet Home.
“Jack, I want to pick your brain a little today,” I said as I slid into the chair beside him.
“That might not take very long,” Jack said with a big smile.
“I have a guy wanting me to go in partners with him to install a radio repeater on a tower on Marks Ridge,” I said. “You have guys out and about all the time. What is your experience with radio reception around Sweet Home?”
“If you think you’ll have a functional radio connection with your office from a single tower on Marks Ridge, you’ll be disappointed,” Jack said. “We purchase usage on multiple towers around the area, many towers really. We do pretty well, most of the time, finding one that we can use. But there are areas that we have no reception. And that is with the use of many repeaters and multiple frequencies.”
“That is what I was afraid of when I was looking at the map,” I said. “Line of sight frequencies don’t tend to go through ridges very well. I think I will just have to continue doing things the way I’ve done them since I came to town.
***
It was some years later that the cell phone was thrust upon the world. The first models were large and cumbersome, and reception in the Sweet Home area was limited. But things progressed.
Bob Lester joined my practice for several years, and we needed to have a little better communication when on farm calls. Finally, Motorola came out with a handheld cell phone. It was still large but smaller than the old walkie-talkie that the Army used. It didn’t fit in your pocket, but it was functional for us.
***
Thursday golf was a big event for me most of the time. I liked it mainly because the phone never rang on the golf course. This one Thursday, Bob was gone, but I had this new cell phone.
Sandy came out of the office as I was getting in the truck to head to the golf course.
“You need to take this with you,” she said, holding the cell phone out to me.
“I guess it will fit in my golf bag,” I said as I took the phone and unzipped the side pocket of my golf bag. I switched the phone on and zipped up the bag, not giving it much thought.
The game went well. I golfed with the same group of guys most of the time. This week, we were in the Men’s club game and played a skins game amongst our group.
In our skins game, the skins that were not won on a hole carried over to the next hole. It was one tie, all tie game, and you had to have the low score on the hole to win the skin. This day, everyone was playing well, and when we came to the seventh tee, no one had won a skin yet. This hole was worth seven skins. At two bits a skin, this hole was worth seven dollars.
The seventh hole at Pineway Golf Course was a par three hole that played about a hundred and fifty yards to a small, sloping green. I hit a hard eight iron and stuck my ball about four feet from the hole.
Everyone was on the green, but I was closest to the pin. The others all putted and had tap-ins for their pars. I had the stage with the only realistic birdie putt.
I carefully addressed the putt.
“What is that,” Gil said as he looked around.
I thought he was trying to distract me from concentrating on the putt that was facing me.
“There it is again,” Jim said. “What the heck is it.”
Then it happened again. I heard it this time.
“It’s coming from Larsen’s bag,” Mike said.
Oh no! It was that damn phone, and it kept ringing.
“Just a minute,” I said as I walked over and unzipped my golf bag. I picked up the phone. The ringing stopped, so I returned it to the bag and zipped up the pocket.
“What’s that thing,” Jim asked again.
“It’s a new cell phone,” I said.
“You better get rid of that before it takes over your life,” Mike said. “We can’t play a game with that thing ringing in the background.”
I addressed the putt again, and the phone started ringing. I concentrated on the hole and stroked the putt.
The putt broke to the right. The ball rolled up to the edge of the hole and seemed to stop for a moment. The phone rang again, and the ball fell into the hole.
“So that how it works, the damn phone pushes the ball into the hole,” Jim said.
“Seven skins,” I said. “Not bad with the phone ringing in the background.”
Everyone picked up their bags and headed for the eighth hole. I took the phone and called Sandy.
“I was just wondering when you were going to be home for dinner,” Sandy said.
Photo by Tyler Henry from Pexels.
Memoirs of a Country Vet 