A Cat’s Breakfast

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I could see Bill and the hired man bringing the cow down from the upper pasture as I pulled up to the squeeze chute. This cow had a dead calf this morning. Bill was unsure what went on, but he was just starting into the calving season and wanted to make sure he didn’t have a problem.

“She looks like she is in good shape,” I said, as they ran the cow down to the squeeze chute. “Do you have any idea when she was due.”

“I told May Jane that you were going to chew me out for not have had the herd preg checked this year,” Bill said. “The calf looks pretty good size, I would guess she was near full term.”

“I am going to take the tractor back up there and get the calf,” the hired man said as he started up the tractor.

“We just want to make sure we don’t have a problem that is going to go through the herd,” Bill said.

“I will draw some blood for this cow and from her dead calf if I can. And I will get a sample of her afterbirth from a cotyledon and samples from the calf. The lab will be able to give us a pretty accurate diagnosis is it is something important. But, a lot of the time, maybe I should say most of the time, they won’t have an answer.”

“Mary Jane wants you to get us on your schedule to do some pregnancy exams this fall,” Bill said as I was finishing up with the sample collection from the cow.

“That will be good, I have a sheet of recommendations on breeding times and when we should do the exams,” I say. “It is good to try to get your calving season down to 40 days or less. It takes a few years to get there for most herds, but you will enjoy life better once we make it.”

“I wonder what is taking Don so long to get that calf?” Bill said. “It is only halfway up the field, he should have been back here a long time ago.”

Bill had no more than uttered the words when the tractor came into view. He had the calf in the front end loader.

“I got up there, and the calf was gone,” Don said. “I looked all over and finally found it up at the top of the field, on the other side of the fence. And you need to take a look at this.”

Don pulled the calf out of the loader and stretched it out on its back. This calf had a half dozen large chomps along the margin of the rib cage that opened the abdomen. The entire liver was gone.

“What the heck do you suppose did that to this calf?” Bill said.

“A cougar did this,” I said. “Look at the size of these chomps along the ribs.” I placed my fingertips along the width of the bite marks, spreading them wide enough to cover each bite mark. “This was a large cat, look at the size of these bites.”

“Yes, large enough to pick this calf up and haul it over 100 yards up the hill and carry it across the fence,” Don said.

“It is 11:00 in the morning, and that field is right beside the county road,” Bill said. “This cat situation is getting a little scary.”

“When I first came to Sweet Home, I seldom heard a story of a cougar,” I said. “Now I hear stories almost every week. When they stopped hunting them with dogs, it changed the cat’s behavior. Even the hound guys tell me that their behavior has changed. Their dogs get tore up by cougars if they corner them. When they were hunting them, they would run to a tree. The cats have lost any fear of man and most of their fear of dogs.

“They see cougars downtown all the time nowadays,” Don said.

“Several things have happened,” I said. “The environments will say we are invading the cat’s territory, but with all the land use laws, things have not expanded around most towns in Western Oregon. What has happened, is the National Forest has stopped most timber harvest. So now there are few clear cuts in the high country. Clear cuts are were all the production happens. All the logging has moved to private lands, most of those lands are located closer to towns. The deer and elk need a lot of browse, and they don’t get in the timber, so they move to where the clear cuts are located. The cats follow their primary food sources. With not much hunting, the cat population expands, and they tend to end up in town once in a while. They find hunting cats and dogs pretty easy living. Encounters are only going to get more frequent as time goes on.”

“What can a person do to change things?” Bill asked.

“Probably not much, a lot of people are champions for the cat,” I said. “Hunting without dogs does very little to control their population. They can be right beside you in the brush and you will never see them. Don was probably lucky this cat didn’t want to argue over who owned this calf.”

“I never thought about that,” Don said. “He probably was not far away when I took it.”

“I had a client tell me a story not long ago,” I said. “His dog was very mean. One of those dogs that I see only to get a rabies shot into every 3 years. This dog is so mean that he bites the owner more than once in a while. This guy was telling me he was walking along a cat road through some small timber with his dog on a leash. The dog started throwing a fit, enough that the guy thought he was going to get bit. He turned the dog loose, it jumps in the brush, right beside them, and kicks out a cougar.”

“The state is quick to use dogs if there is a problem cat somewhere,” Don said.

“Nothing will change until a cat drags some kid out of a schoolyard someday,” Bill said.

“I better get some samples from this calf. The liver is a pretty important sample that the lab asks for, they probably won’t believe me when I tell them that a cat beat me to it.”

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

Cows Never Eat the Stuff

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Here I was again, standing over a dead cow, in the middle of a pasture filled with Tansy, listening to a rancher explain to me that cows never touch the stuff. As I stood there sharpening my necropsy knife, I thought about my long history with Tansy.

My first recollection of awareness of Tansy was at a family picnic at Tom and Kathryn Lawson’s ranch, on the top of Catching Creek Mountain, out of Myrtle Point. The year was 1950, the plant was just then starting to show up on the high ridges of Coos County. We knew it killed cows and horses, but I do not recall seeing a loss. My oldest brother had a summer job the following year, working for Coos County spraying Tansy, mainly on the high ridges in the county. It did not take long for it to spread to the valleys. By the time I was 10, pulling Tansy was a standard summer chore for almost any farm kid in the county.

At least this cow was dead. In the 1970s, the diagnosis was challenging in a live animal before it was near death. Blood work could show liver failure, but that was not specific to Tansy toxicity. 

I was always amazed at how these guys could be in such a state of denial. They wanted an answer to the death, but one that fits their opinion that cows would never eat the stuff.

It only takes me a few minutes to open this cow up. I slit the skin down the ventral midline and reflect the hide up to her back. Elevating the legs and freeing them of their muscle attachment, I flip both legs and the skin to layout over her back. Then I open the belly and ribs, reflecting them back, so I now have the cow opened for view.

“So, I want you to look at this, Tom,” I say as I start to point out the visible signs of liver failure. “This belly shows all the signs of liver failure. The yellowish discoloration to the tissues, the severe accumulation of fluid in the belly, the chest is normal, and the liver is swollen and pale yellow in color.”

“Okay, I can see liver failure,” Tom says. “But there has to be a lot of things that cause liver failure. How can you be so sure it is Tansy?”

“Well, an old veterinarian, Dr. Pierson, who I respect very much, always said: “When you are in a barn and hear hoofbeats, you look for a horse, not a zebra.”

“I guess I don’t know what that means,” Tom said.

“That means you rule out the obvious diagnosis before you go off in some unrelated direction, trying to prove a once in a lifetime diagnosis. In my mind, when I stand in a field filled with Tansy, looking at a cow with liver failure, the diagnosis is Tansy Toxicity until I prove that it is something else. Now let me get a piece of this liver and show you the insides.”

I slice off a large section of the liver. The very sharp knife almost vibrates as it is pulled through the liver tissue. I lay this piece of liver on the cow’s hip for a makeshift table.

“I can send a piece of this into the lab, and the pathologist will give us a confirmed diagnosis,” I say. “Tansy Toxicity has a very characteristic appearance under the microscope. First, I want you to look at the cut surface of this liver. Think about the liver seen in the store and compare it to this liver. This liver is swollen with rounded edges, not dense with sharp edges, pale yellow in color rather than deep red, and this cut surface has the appearance of nutmeg, not a consistent deep red appearance.”

I handed Tom the knife. “I want you to drag this knife through this liver. You watched how sharp this knife is when I opened this cow. I want you to feel how it almost vibrates as it cuts through this chunk of liver.”

Tom takes the knife and makes a slice in the liver. “It almost feels like it is cutting steel wool.”

“That is maybe a good analogy,” I say. 

“Okay, Doc, you have presented me a pretty good case,” Tom says. “And I guess we are going to send a piece of this to the lab, just to be sure. Why is it then, that we don’t have a bunch of cows lying here dead?’

“You are a little bit correct, Tom, when you say the cows never eat the stuff,” I say. “Most cows will avoid it most of the time. It is most dangerous in the hay, and also after it is sprayed. The plant takes up a lot of sugars as it wilts after being sprayed. Cows will find it acceptable for a week or two as it dies. Also, some cows, and some horses, will develop a liking for the stuff, and they will seek it out.”

“So you are saying we are both right,” Tom says.

“Only sort of,” I say. “This cow didn’t eat a bunch of Tansy yesterday and then died. She could have eaten a toxic dose months ago. You are just lucky that you found her dead and not sick. Making a diagnosis in a cow getting ready to die from Tansy is difficult, and expensive. Sometimes I will make several visits before ending up doing a liver biopsy. There is a lot of frustration in treating a Tansy Toxicity. But time always tells us, all of these cows die. I looked at a dead cow once and her 3-day old calf, who was also dead. Both of them died of Tansy Toxicity. The cow is easy to understand. The calf is a little more of a question. It is highly unlikely it could have eaten enough Tansy to be a problem. There is some evidence that the toxic alkaloids are passed in the milk. But probably not in a dangerous concentration. That leaves the placenta; this calf probably received a toxic dose from its mother through the placenta.”

“What do I have to do now to get control of this stuff?” Tom asked.

“It is tough, and it is not going to happen overnight,” I said. “Maybe not even in a year. This stuff it too high to benefit from spraying. I would mow it down and either compost it or burn it if you can. Then next spring, you need to spray the pasture. Keep the cows off the pasture after spraying for 2 – 3 weeks. Then next summer, pull any plants that make it through all of that. Probably most important, get all your neighbors to do the same. And talk to the County Extension Agent. They promise that a caterpillar is coming that will eat the stuff. I haven’t seen any yet.”

“What do I need to do with this carcass?” Tom asked. “Is it toxic? I mean, if my dog gets out here and eats on this, is it going to kill him?”

“Now, that is an interesting question,” I said. “And I don’t have an answer for that one. I will definitely check the books, but I am not sure anything is written about the toxicity of the tissues. I doubt if there is a problem, but I don’t know. I would call the rendering company, or I would bury it.”

Under the Old Plum Tree

D. E. Larsen, DVM

It was almost midnight in the early fall of 1977 when Lloyd called with a sick cow. 

“The boys say she has been eating plums. She seems to be pretty sick, Doc. Do you think she will be OK till morning?” He asked, obviously quite worried about his favorite cow.

“How many plums do you think she ate, Lloyd?” I inquired, hoping I could justify rolling over to go back to sleep.

“The boys say she was under that tree all afternoon, and there are plums all over the ground. The limbs are hanging pretty heavy with them,” Lloyd replies.

“It’ll take me a little while, but I will be there shortly,” I say as I throw my legs out of bed and start looking for my clothes.

Lloyd is a tall thin, soft-spoken man with a thick mustache and thinning hair. I have only been to his ranch once before, but I have seen Lloyd and his dog at the clinic several times.

I turned onto Scott Mountain road and passed Ayer’s driveway. It’s well past midnight as I wind up Scott Mountain road. It doesn’t take long, and I break into the open fields of Pat’s place. The moon is full, and the crisp autumn night is still. The stars are bright, and the sky is very striking out here, far removed from the city lights. 

As I enter the timber starting down the backside of Scott Mountain, a bobcat suddenly is surprised by my headlights in the middle of the road. He runs helter-skelter ahead of me down the mountain road. With high banks on both sides of the road, he runs headlong, looking for an escape from the glare of my headlights. It’s unusual to see a bobcat on the road, and I’m a little surprised at the speed he is traveling. The road suddenly opens again, and he darts into the brush on the right of the road.  

Lloyd and his son are waiting for me at the door of a small barn next to the road. A very miserable cow is standing in the milking stall of the shed. She is not in a stanchion, which is probably a good thing because there is a possibility of her falling.

The old Jersey stood head down, was not wanting to move. The left side of her abdomen quite distended with gas. I didn’t need a rope or halter to handle her, she is miserable enough that she doesn’t want to move.  

I slide through the gate and start doing an exam. Her temperature is normal, and her chest sounds are normal. When I got to her belly, her rumen distended and is hardly moving. Then I start a rectal exam, Standing on her right side, I begin to insert my gloved left hand into her rectum. She has a major blowout of watery diarrhea, just missing me.

“That was close,” I say. “Has she had that diarrhea for awhile?”

“No, she has been fine until tonight,” Lloyd said. “The boys say that she was eating plums all afternoon, out under the old plum tree we have out on the hillside. Most of the time, that tree doesn’t have much fruit, but this year it’s loaded.”

Using a Frick Speculum, a metal tube to keep the cows teeth from chomping on the stomach tube, I pass my large rubber stomach tube into her rumen, the first stomach of cows. I blow a deep breath of air into the tube to clear the tube of obstructing rumen content. I pull the tube from my mouth and point it away from me. The rumen gas fills the small shed. The smell of fermented plums is overwhelming. The old Jersey feels better with the relief of the gas. I pump a gallon of mineral oil into the rumen. This is to aid in the passage of the plums through the gut. Then I pump in a gallon of warm water with a pound of Carmalax powder dissolved in it. Carmalax is an antacid, laxative, and rumen stimulant all rolled into one.

“She’ll be fine, Lloyd. But you probably don’t want to be caught standing behind her in the morning,” I say, smiling as I begin putting things away in the truck.

What a beautiful drive home with the full moon.  I enjoyed the night. I didn’t see the bobcat again, even though I looked closely along the edge of the road where I had last seen him. He probably would not make the mistake of being seen on the road again for a long time. It was going to feel good to get back to a warm bed and snuggle close to Sandy.

When I called Lloyd the next day, the cow was doing great.

“I see what you meant last night,” Lloyd said, “She sort of plastered the walls of the shed during the night.”

Photo Credit: Photo by Ivanna Kykla from Pexels.