A Stone for his Mantle

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Urinary stones in beef cattle in the Willamette Valley were uncommon, meaning that I would see a case once or maybe twice a year at the most. Often going several years between cases. I do not recall ever seeing more than one case on any one ranch.

With that in mind, I found it uncommon when Walt called with a little steer calf who was standing around twitching his tail and stomping his hind feet. Uncommon, in the fact that Walt would recognize that as enough of an issue to call me early. It demonstrated how some of these old farmers were so in touch with their animals that they knew when there was a serious problem.

Walt was a tall, thin man with a broad smile on his face most of the time. Thin does not mean that he was not strong. Thin and wiry, he was tough as nails, and could work most men into the ground. Walt had a team of draft horses, Belgiums, that he used every year to put up hay in the field that was next to the highway. I am sure that many people would observe him and fail to realize how rare the spectacle was today. I always enjoyed watching the horses work and would often take the back road so I could stop and watch for a time.

Today was a nice late spring day with mostly blue sky, but some heavy dark clouds. Walt was waiting when I and Ruth Slagoski pulled into his barnyard. Ruth was short with dark hair. She had worked for me for a couple of years and although not a farm girl she really enjoyed the farms we visited. Walt’s farm had offered a variety we didn’t often see, with draft horses, along with the cattle.

Walt greeted us with his beaming smile and an outstretched hand. His hand shake was firm and sincere. I knew these men judged the men they met by their hand shake, something I didn’t learn in school but I had learned long ago growing up around men who earned their living working with their hands.

“I have them in the back of the loafing shed. The little guy is really uncomfortable,” Walt said. Showing his obvious concern with a fading smile.

We walk into the shed and the black baldy mamma cow and her calf were standing on the back wall. The calf was twitching is tail constantly and stomping both hind feet as if to a rhythm. “Walt, this guy probably has a stone plugging up his urethra and he can’t pee,” I explained. “It is early yet and he is uncomfortable because of his distended bladder. In a little while, one of two things are going to happen, either his bladder breaks or his urethra breaks. When that happens, the pain goes away but the problem becomes much more difficult to fix. It is a very good thing that you called early.”

The calf was easy to catch and we tied his head and then ran the mamma cow outside. I was sure of my diagnosis but completed a quick exam. Temperature was normal and his chest was normal. I did a digital rectal exam and laid my finger tip on his pelvic urethra. It was pulsating constantly.

He was a small calf, I am not sure I had seen a stone in this young of a calf before. I took another rope and tied a loop in the middle of the bite of the rope. I slipped this loop over his neck with the knot laying between his front legs. Then both ends of the rope went up over his back, crossing in the middle of the back, then down his sides and out between his hind legs.  This was called a “flying W” and is a standard method to throw a cow, generally not used on a small calf but we were going to have to tie him down for surgery.

I grabbed the two ends of the rope and pulled, the calf stiffened and fell on his side. We rolled him up on his back, flexed his hind legs and tied each leg with the ropes in a manner that when he would kick, it would put more pressure on his back and add more restraint.

Once restrained, with me on my knees, I could palpate the length of his penis. Stones generally lodge at the point of the attachment of the retractor penis muscle in the sigmoid flexure of the penis. I grasped this portion of the penis with my left hand to stabilize it. With my  right hand I could easily palpate the stone.

“This is going to be easy,” I said to Walt. He was watching close. Most of these guys had not watched a calf thrown so easily before.

We clipped and prepped the site for surgery and Ruth opened the surgery pack while I put on gloves. This was barnyard surgery at its best. There was fresh straw down but the softness of the ground under my knees told me we were on top of a foot or more of straw and manure.

The surgery was brief, as I had promised. After clipping and prepping the area, I injected the area with Lidocaine for local anesthesia, grasped the penis to stabilize it, palpated the stone and made about a two inch incision over the stone. With a pair of forceps, I bluntly divided the tissues to expose the urethra with the bulge where the stone was located. Once this was exposed I elevated the penis and drove a scissors under the penis and out the other side to maintain the exposure, stabilize the urethra, and free up my left hand. I palpated the stone again, then carefully incised the urethra, feeling the grit of the stone as the scalpel pulled across it. With a forceps, I grabbed the stone and pulled it out of the urethra and placed it on the surgery pack. It was about the size of a pea, off white in color. I took a 22 inch, 8 French urinary catheter and ran it up the urethra toward the bladder. It was just long enough to reach the bladder. We relaxed as urine drained out of the catheter. I could imagine that the calf was feeling some relief at this point. When the urine stopped, I removed the catheter and then ran it the other direction to make sure the rest of the urethra was open.

Now we had some decisions to make, to close or not to close. We had the option of leaving the incisions open. I sort of favored this option because if there are more stones in the bladder they have the chance of passing out the incision. Barnyard surgery is not the best in the world, and closing the incision always gives a possibility of infection. And closing the urethra on such a small calf could lead to an even more narrow spot that could cause problems later. The only problem with leaving the incisions open was that urine would flow out of the incision for a week or so until there was enough healing to allow normal flow.

I was getting ready to discuss all of this with Walt when the calf kicked and got one hind leg free from the restraint. He kicked again and the surgery pack went flying. The decision was made by the calf. I grabbed the scissors, releasing the penis to return to normal position. Ruth started gathering instruments that were scattered through the straw.

Walt was crawling across the straw on his hands and knees, concentrating on one spot. He ran his hand across the straw a couple of times. The with a beaming smile raised his hand, he had found the stone.

“This is going on my mantle,” he said, still smiling. 

We let the calf up, sprayed for flies and explained the urine flow issue to Walt. Things turned out okay, and I will never know how Walt was able to keep track of that stone in all the commotion.

Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash

Hallowed Ground

D. E. Larsen, DVM

We hurried across the cow bridge at the upper end of Uncle Dutch’s farm. We were in a hurry because we planned to hunt up to the Bartlett farm this afternoon. This would require us to cross Catching Creek one more time, and that crossing would have no bridge. Don Miller and I were in the fall of our 8th-grade year. Living on neighboring farms, we hunted ducks and anything else along the creek as often as we could.

Don was a little smaller than I, but we were both stout young men and growing as we hurried along. I had on pair of hand-me-down hip boots. Don was in tennis shoes. That meant that I would have to carry Don across the creek piggyback.

As we rushed across the field toward the ford to Bartlett’s lower ground, a ruffed grouse sprang from the creek bank. We generally collected several wood ducks on these evening hunts. Occasionally, we would run into a flock of mallards. If we were lucky, a China rooster would cross our path. But this grouse was an unexpected surprise, and I didn’t miss.

We had been hunting the creek for a couple of seasons now, and we were crack shots with our shotguns. We knew every riffle in the stream, and we knew where we could expect ducks. Most of the time, we didn’t have enough time to get this far up the creek. We would have to hurry to get back to our fields to shot ducks as they came back down the creek heading to roost in the swamp near town.

When we came to the ford, I pulled up my boots, and Don jumped on my back. With Don holding both shotguns, we crossed the creek with no problems. We had worried about this ford when we were planning to hunt higher in the creek. We hunted along the creek in Bartlett’s lower field, jumping a group of mallards. Don and I both added a large mallard drake to our bag. This was a great addition to our normal hunt.

As we headed back down the creek, I stumbled while carrying Don across the ford. We came close to ending up in the water. I did recover my balance and ran the last few steps to the far bank. We sat and rested and laughed at the near disaster. We knew it would have made the trip down the creek a chilly walk.

We had about a mile to go. We didn’t need to follow the creek going down. We had jumped all the ducks on the way up the creek. We just wanted to get to our field at the base of the Cowhorn (our field was named for its shape. The Cowhorn on our side of the creek, and Horseshoe Bend on Uncle Dutch’s side). The ducks flying down the creek in the evening would cross this field every evening. We seldom hit a duck in the field. They were high and flying fast, but it gave us a lot of fun shooting, and just maybe we would get one.

As we reached the field, we had to follow the creek a short distance to reach our shooting area. We both stopped at the same time. There were riffles, many of them, in a quiet area of the creek. This had to mean a whole flock of ducks. We spread apart, crouched a little, and snuck along the creek bank. Expecting to see the sky fill with ducks, we burst into an open grassy area of the bank, guns at the ready.

There were no ducks. A cow was floundering in the water. She seemed unable to recover her footing and was struggling to keep her head above water. I laid my shotgun and game bag down, pulled up my boots, and entered the creek to hold her head.

“Don, run over to Lundy’s and call Dad,” I shouted to Don.

He dropped his gear and took off like a shot. 

The cow settled down a little with me holding her head.  It was going to be 20 or maybe 30 minutes before anybody got here. I was glad I had my hip boots.

The first to arrive was Vern Lundy and Don. They drove in Vern’s old pickup. Dad was on his way with the tractor, an old Ferguson, a small but function tractor. Next to arrive was Uncle Dutch and Grandpa. They stopped and tended the gate while Dad drove the tractor through the gate and up to the creek bank.

Dad came into the water with me, standing on the other side of the cows head. He had a large cotton tow-rope.

“We are going to tie this around her neck and pull her out with the tractor,” he said.

“Won’t that break her neck?” I asked.

“Not if we do it right, now you watch. We are going to tie a bowline with the knot placed under her chin. The rope will be tight against the back of her head,” he said as demonstrated the knot and the placement of the rope. 

When he was done, he looked at me and said, “Savvy?”

“Savvy!” I replied

“Now you do it,” he said as he undid his knot and handed me the rope.

With little problem, I wrapped the rope and around her neck, pulled it tight against the back of her head and ears, and tied a bowline that fit under her chin.

“Good,” Dad said, “Now hold her head until I start pulling her, then you move out of the way so your not in the bite of the rope in case it breaks or something.”

With the rope secured to the tractor, Dad started pulling the cow, I moved away, and the tractor pulled to cow up the grassy bank and up to a level spot in the field. The men were quick to untie her and help position her half sitting up. I waded to shore, still thankful that I was dry. 

“The vet is on his way, he should be here before too long,” Grandpa said.

“I have to get heading for home, or it will be dark by the time I get there,” Don said as he picked up his shotgun and ducks.

I watched as Don started across the Cowhorn, headed for Felsher Lane, that would lead him to his house. We both knew that we hunted and fished on hallowed ground. Less than 20 years before, this same ground, was hunted and fished by Phil Bartlett, who was lost when he crashed his fighter plane into a mountain on a night mission in the Pacific. Stan Felsher also covered this same ground, he died in the Batan Death March. Bayoneted by a Japanese soldier while on a detail to gather firewood. Bob Lundy was decorated for his service on a flight crew in the Pacific, and my Uncle Ernie was a bomber pilot. I had several cousins who fought in Korea, a couple of them in the thick of things. 

What we did not know was that Don had but 7 years left to live. He would be killed by a 50 caliber round in a friendly fire misadventure in Vietnam. I received that news in a letter from Mom while I was serving in Korea. This was, indeed, hallowed ground. A tremendous sacrifice of young men from such a small area of close-knit farm families.

Dr. Haug, the veterinarian, arrived shortly. He did a quick exam and started an IV. He was in a hurry; he probably had dinner waiting. When Dad asked him what he thought about the cow being in the creek, he was pretty brief. “The creek just got in her way as she was going down, this cow has milk fever,” he said.

Dr. Haug finished the second bottle and put his stuff away. Slapping the cow on her back, she was quick to right herself and get to her feet. Everybody was relieved.

“It probably would be a good idea to put her in the barn tonight, that will help her warm-up. It is unlikely that she will go down again, but if she does, there won’t be any duck hunters to find her tonight,” Dr. Haug said, glancing at me with a smile.

Dad and Uncle Dutch started the cow toward the barn, I knew I would be expected to finish the job. I picked up my shotgun and game bag, and as I passed Dr. Haug, I asked, “Which do you want, the mallard drake or the ruffed grouse.”

He was quick to take the grouse, smiled, and said, “Thanks,” as he got into his truck and headed to the gate. I hurried to catch up to the cow.

Epilogue

This story speaks to the tremendous sacrifice suffered from a small group of farm families living along the banks of Catching Creek, a small tributary to the Coquille River.

I grew up in Oregon’s Coquille River Valley in the 1940s and 1950s. After a stretch in the US Army from 1965 to 1969, I returned to school and graduated from Colorado State University School of Veterinary Medicine in 1975. I practiced in the foothills of the Oregon Cascade Mountains for 40 years.

The loss of my close childhood friend, Don Miller, was the driving force for my return to school following my tour in the US Army.

Ernie’s Pig

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I stood in the barnyard facing a long metal barn. It is about 90 feet long, maybe 30 feet wide with 10-foot walls. The light breeze coming off the Calapoolya River stirs a little dust. Still, it feels cool in the midday heat of July in the Willamette Valley. Not a soul in sight, Ernie had called, saying he needed emergency help with a pig. There was no other explanation. I pondered my next step. The house looked empty, nobody ran to meet me. My guess is they must be in the barn.

   Then a hear a very faint, “help.” Where did that come from, it was too weak for me to get a bearing. Then it happened again. “Help,” a little louder this time, or maybe I was expecting it. It came from the barn, probably the left end.

   I entered the barn and started threading my way toward the far corner. Now I could see them. Ernie’s son-in-law, a stout young man with glasses and a crew cut, was laying across this 150-pound pig, holding him down. Ernie, a thin, wiry old guy, was lying behind the pig. Ernie was holding a pile of intestines protruding from the rear end of the pig. The floor was loose dirt, and every movement produced a cloud of dust the settled on the men, the pig, and the pile of intestines.

  “Thank God you made it, Doc,” Ernie said. “I can’t hold this much longer.”

   I walked over to them, trying to not stir up too much dust. They were castrating this pig. They had a big hernia with a pile of intestines that would fill a gallon bucket protruding from the scrotal incision. I looked close, the other testicle remained, that was a good thing. That would allow me to quickly sedate this pig and see if I could clean things up and replace all the gut.

   “Hang on just a little longer, Ernie,” I said. “I have to get a few things from the truck, and then I think we have a shot at fixing this guy up.”

   I slowly moved away from the group and then ran to the truck to gather things. A drop cloth to put everything on, a plastic bag to put under the guts, an emasculator, surgery pack, scalpel blade, bucket of water with Betadine scrub and solution, suture material, fly spray and antibiotics. One bucket with water, the other full of everything else. I almost forgot the Pentathol. I mixed a 5-gram bottle and drew up 3 grams into a 60 cc syringe, attaching a sixteen gauge, one and one half inch needle to the syringe.

   The office was too busy for me to bring anybody to help, I could have used an extra hand right now. I knew that I would probably forget something, so I went over the list in mind one more time before heading back into the barn.

   “Just another couple of minutes and I will let you relax Ernie,” I said as I started laying out the drop cloth, moving Ernie a little to the side. Then I slid the plastic under the intestines. 

   “Now you can let them go, Ernie, we will just let them lay here for a few minutes,” I said. Ernie let go of the guts, and he just rolled away, laying on his back in the dust with his bloody hands in the air.

   I washed my hands and swabbed the scrotum over the intact testicle. This testicle was several inches in diameter and over four inches long. I popped the 16 gauge needle into the testicle up the hub. The pig was about as tired as Ernie and only slightly flinched. I injected the 3 grams of Pentathol into the testicle.

  “This guy will be asleep in a minute, and you can also rest,” I said to Bill. He had been quiet throughout the whole time.

   I opened the surgery pack quickly and attached the scalpel blade. The pig was pretty sleepy now. I incised the scrotum over the testicle and through the tunic. I squeezed the testicle out of the scrotum and clamped the cord with large Oschner forceps.

   “You can relax now,” I said to Bill. “I have him under control. Just stay close in case I need you.”

   The beauty of this anesthesia in castration is the clamp on the cord. I the pig starts to stir, I release the clamp and let a little more anesthetic into his circulation. When I get the hernia repaired, I will remove this testicle, and he will wakeup pretty quickly.

   Now I turn my attention to the gut pile. Covered with dust, but there does not appear to be any tears or other injuries. They are a little purple, but the time frame is such that they should be okay if I can replace them. I rinse the dust off with a good splash of water. Then Betadine Surgical Scrub, a little more water, and a good scrub.

   “If you could take this other bucket and fill it with water from the hose in the back of the truck, I would appreciate it,” I say to Bill. He jumps up and grabs the bucket. I think he wanted to have a little break.

   “Doc, is he a goner?” Ernie asked as he sat up, mostly recovered from his ordeal.

   “I think things look pretty good, Ernie,” I replied. “I get these guts back where they belong and close up this hernia, he should be good to go.”

   “I’ll be damned If I am going to try to save a farm call again,” Ernie said. “I am done with castrating pigs.”

   “It is a lot easier if you do it when they are under 10 pounds,” I said. “However, you could still have this problem even on the little ones.”

   Bill got back with the water. I made a solution with the Betadine solution in the bucket. Port wine color, they always said in school. I don’t think I ever saw port wine. I flushed the guts with a large splash. Then holding the mass up level with the inguinal canal, I began to feed them back into the abdomen. When the guts were mostly back into the abdomen, I freed the tunic from the scrotal tissues. Twisting the tunic like I was closing a plastic bag, the last of the exposed intestines squirted back into the abdomen. Then I placed a clamp across the tunic to hold everything in place while I got the suture ready. 

     I released the clamp on the testicle for a couple of minutes and watched as the pig made a big sigh. Then, I reapplied the clamp.

   I placed a transfixing suture of #2 Dexon on the tunic. Then I palpated the external inguinal ring. I could put 3 fingers into the ring. I placed one mattress suture in the posterior half of the ring and tightened it to close the ring’s size. This done, I emasculated the other testicle. Again on this side, I freed the tunic and closed it up and sutured it closed. The external ring on this side felt normal. I don’t remember ever seeing a bilateral hernia in pigs.

   I squirted both incisions with Betadine solution and sprayed the whole area with fly spray. Then I gave a large dose of Amoxicillin SQ in the front quarter. The pig was starting to stir a little.

   “He will be on his feet before I have everything back in the truck, “ I said as I started gathering things up. 

   “Boy, was ever glad to see you, Doc,” Ernie said with a still bloody hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know what we would have done without you, just would have had to butcher him, I guess.”

   “Just remember, Ernie, next time do it when they are little,” I replied.

   “I am thankful you could come so quickly, I guess I wasn’t even thinking of how much it was going to cost. Just remember Doc, when you are filling out the bill, he is just a pig, can’t be worth much,” Ernie said.

   “Well, Ernie, I’ll tell you one thing, he is worth a damn site more today than he was yesterday,” I replied.`

Photo Credit: Photo by mali maeder from Pexels