Treating Blossom, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

“David, don’t move for a minute!” Mrs. Bishop said as she came at me with a pitchfork.

Blossom, a Guernsey milk cow, was secured in her stanchion of the Bishop’s small barn. She supplied the Bishops and several neighbors with milk for most of the year. 

Today, her stall area was bedded down with a thick layer of fresh straw in preparation for my visit and exam. Mrs. Bishop keeps this little barn spotless. I envisioned Mr. Bishop milking and Mrs. Bishop standing guard with a shovel, making sure no manure hit the floor.

I managed to dodge the pitchfork as Mrs. Bishop retrieved the handful of manure that I had dropped onto the straw. I was cleaning out Blossom’s colon to do a good rectal exam, and there would be more handfuls to follow.

“Blossom has a full colon today,” I said. “This is going to take me a couple of minutes to clean things out, so I do a good exam. I have some boots on, so it might be better if you wait until I get her all cleaned out before you pick things up.”

“David, if you get this stuff on your boots, you will track it all over the barn,” Mrs. Bishop said. “You just don’t get in a hurry.”

Mr. Bishop was standing to the side, just watching the show. He was a quiet man, mostly bald but with some gray hair on the sides. He smiled and winked at me, just to let me know that Mrs. Bishop ran the show on this place, so I best just better relax and let it happen. I just didn’t want her to get my foot with that pitchfork.

With each handful of manure, Mrs. Bishop was right there with the pitchfork. I was sort of amazed at the thickness of the straw she had laid down.

I was finally at a point where I could start a good exam.

“Give me a little history on Blossom,” I said. “When did she calve?”

“She calved a little over six weeks ago,” Mr. Bishop said. 

“Yes, David, she calved six weeks ago, and she has not cycled yet,” Mrs. Bishop said. Her voice was stern, giving Mr. Bishop a look to let him know that she was the one that was going to answer all the questions. “She has been fine otherwise. We noticed a couple of days ago that she was not eating all of her grain and her milk production has down almost to half of normal.”

Holding onto Blossom’s tail with my right hand, I ran my arm into her rectum past my elbow. Then I swept the pelvic floor with my left hand. Blossom’s uterus was bulging under my hand. I could bounce my hand on it, but it was so distended to discern any content other than a lot of fluid.

“Did she have any problems calving?” I asked.

“She retained her membranes for a time,” Mrs. Bishop said. “We called your office, but Vicki said that you didn’t like to look at those for at least two days after calving. I think she passed those membranes sometime during the night of the second day. The membranes were really stinky. I had Robert bury them in the far corner of the pasture.”

I have been coming to the Bishop’s small farm on Gap Road out of Brownsville for a couple of years now, and that was the first time I heard Mrs. Bishop call Robert by name. I wondered to myself what would happen if I called him Bob.

“She must have a residual infection in her uterus,” I said. “Have you noticed any vaginal discharge?” 

“No, she has been fine,” Mrs. Bishop said.

I removed my arm and peeled my OB sleeve off, being careful to turn it inside out as I removed it and to not knock off any manure onto the straw. As soon as I had it off, Mrs. Bishop snatched it from my hand and disposed of it in her little garbage can.

I washed Blossom’s rear in and then scrubbed her with Betadine surgical scrub. I could see Mrs. Bishop watching me with questioning eyes as I pulled on a new OB sleeve.

“I am going to do a vaginal exam to see if her cervix is open,” I said.

“Don’t you need a speculum for that kind of an exam?” Mrs. Bishop asked.

“I have a large bovine speculum,” I said. “But I seldom need to use it. After a few years of training myself, I can almost see with my fingertips of my left hand.”

After applying lube to my hand and arm, it inserted my hand into Blossom’s vagina. The vagina was tightly closed at a point before my hand was in to my wrist. I frowned.

“You frowned,” Mrs. Bishop said. “There must be something wrong.”

“Just give me a minute,” I said. “Her vagina has some adhesions.”

I had never encountered anything like this before. My mind whirled through its database, but I could bring nothing up. I suspected a pyometra was present, but I had never heard of a vagina closed off from adhesions.

I pinched my fingertips together and advanced my hand and arm into the vagina. I could feel the walls of the vagina separate. It almost felt like they were unzipping. Just before I got to the cervix, it was open. And filled with fluid. The cervix was open to where I could insert three fingers. 

I pulled my arm out of Blossom’s vagina. The OB sleeve was covered with blood. When my hand came out, gallons of thick white pus followed and splattered into the straw.

“Oh, my God,” Mrs. Bishop said.

I was unsure what she was upset about. The obvious serious problem with Blossom’s reproductive tract, or the fact that now there were gallons of pus mixed with her straw and splattered around the stall.

“What has happened to our Blossom?” Mrs. Bishop asked.

“She obviously has a uterus filled with pus,” I said. “That happens at times. Why the vagina was closed with adhesions, I don’t know. I have never seen or heard of that problem before. But I think we can help her out now. I will give her an injection to ensure that she empties that uterus. Then, I will flush it with some antibiotics today. We will also give her some antibiotics by injection, and I will recheck her in a couple of days.”

“Okay, David, but you are going to have to give me a few minutes to get this mess cleaned up,” Mrs. Bishop said. “You need to go wash those boots of yours.  Robert, you need to get the big wheelbarrow in here. This is a real mess.”

As instructed, I went and hosed off my boots. It also gave me time to get all of Blossom’s medication ready. And I could watch the circus in the barn. Robert took his instructions without saying a word. Those instructions were detailed to the point where he was to dump the wheelbarrow.

When the barn was cleaned up enough, I got back to work. I flushed Blossom’s uterus with an antibiotic solution and gave her several injections.

“You are going to have to discard the milk while Blossom is being treated,” I said.

“Is it okay to give to the calf and the pigs?” Robert asked.

“Yes, Bob,” I said. “The pigs are probably going be happy to get it all for a change.”

“His name is Robert, David,” Mrs. Bishop said. “And the pigs always get a little bit of milk, but now they will think they should get more all the time.”

“I will be back the day after tomorrow to recheck Blossom,” I said. “I expect things to be much improved by then. You may have to deal with her discharging some pus today and tomorrow. After that, it should be better. You need to call Vicki or Sandy and schedule a time for my recheck.”

***

Blossom’s uterus was all but normal on my recheck, and the lining of her vagina was healed. I could hardly tell there had been a problem. I infused her uterus with some antibiotics and made sure the Bishops were up to speed on the antibiotic injections they were giving. 

“Can we have her bred when she comes into heat,” Mrs. Bishop asked.

“I would wait until the second heat cycle,” I said. “That will give her uterus more time to get back to normal. And when you have her bred, you should call me, and we should give her another infusion the day after she is bred.”

“You do that after she is bred?” Mrs. Bishop asked with a questioning tone.

“Yes, it takes about three days for the fertilized egg to get to the uterus. So we can infuse the uterus with a gentle antibiotic and just clear up any residual infection that might be present.”

***

Blossom continued to do well, and her breeding resulted in a pregnancy. My only concern now was that Mrs. Bishop would insist on an immediate exam if Blossom failed to pass her fetal membranes within a few hours of calving.

Photo by Frank Grün from Pexels

Old Three Toes, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

When I was growing up in Coos County one rarely encountered a Coyote, except on the high ridges. We didn’t think much about it at the time. That was just the way it was. I remember the first coyote I saw, on the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, on a cold morning Jeep ride with Uncle Robert.

    Twenty years later coyotes had moved into the valleys and were heard regularly and encountered with little effort if hunting them. They had become a significant problem to sheep ranchers, and an occasional brave one would come close enough to the barnyard to snatch a chicken.

    My Uncle Duke’s explanation for the change was probably the most accurate. I didn’t have a full understanding at the time but would later come to appreciate his wisdom.  In my younger years, 1940s and early 1950s, all the creeks in the area were full of spawning salmon and steelhead in the fall and winter. Dead, spawned out, fish were present on the riverbanks and all the creek banks. Later in the 1950s and 1960s, commercial fishing for salmon moved from the steams to the ocean.  Spawning fish numbers decreased and dead fish were only occasionally encountered on most streams.

    Duke’s opinion was that when the streams were chuck full of fish the coyotes would have easy access to salmon and would die from the disease. The only viable populations thus existed on the high ridges far removed from the spawning streams.

    Salmon Disease (or Poisoning) is a complex disease of all canines. It occurs approximately 7 days after a dog (or coyote) consumes infected raw salmon, trout or steelhead. The fish carry a larva of an intestinal fluke. The fluke causes only mild disease and can infect a number of species, but the fluke also carries a rickettsia. It is this rickettsia that makes all canines ill and is the cause of Salmon Disease.

    Salmon Disease is treatable if it is caught in time. Ninety percent of dogs (and coyotes) will die within 7 – 10 of becoming sick if they are not treated. Survivors may be immune for long periods if not for a lifetime although there are exceptions to this immunity.

    I was on a farm call, talking with Dick Rice. Dick owned a ranch on the Calapooia River. His ranch was one of the early pioneer ranches in the area. 

“Doc, I have been having a heck of a problem with coyotes the last couple of years,” Dick said. “It seems to be the same coyotes most of the time. He has only three toes on one foot.   He catches any lamb left out of the barn overnight. Can’t trap him, he is too wise.”

  Dick was at his wits end on how to deal with this bandit.  I related my Uncle Duke’s opinion on the shift of the coyote population into the Western Valleys. He listened with interest but just seemed to take it in as a story. I finished with the calf we were treating, loaded up and returned to the clinic. 

    I never gave the conversation much thought after that until I bumped into Dick outside of Thriftway one afternoon. Dick had hurried to catch up to me in the parking lot. It was apparent that he wanted to talk.

    “Hi Doc, how have you been?” he said, a little out of breath.  “I have wanted to talk to you about that Old Three Toes.”

    “Aw, yes, I remember you talking about him,” I replied.

    “You know, I got thinking about the story you told about Salmon Poisoning. One night after work, I stopped in here and bought a hunk of salmon tail. I have an old burn pit and garbage pile on the far side of the pasture behind the house. I took that salmon out there and put it on the edge of that pile.  It was gone the next morning.” 

    “And Doc, that was a couple of months ago. I have had no more coyote problems, and Old Three Toes is gone. I have not seen his tracks anywhere. Can’t thank you enough for that story.” 

    “I’m glad it helped you, Dick. You can thank the observation skills of an old farmer for the information. I am not sure that I would have ever put that information together to come up with that conclusion,” I replied.

Photo by DAVID NIETO on Unsplash

Table Manners for the Old Dog, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen,DVM

   Frank pushed through the door with Harley. Harley was an old yellow lab, very overweight, and suffering from arthritis due to all the extra weight.  

   “I need to see Doc, right away if possible!” he said abruptly. “Old Harley, he is not eating much since Kara passed. I’m not eating much either, for that matter.”

   Frank and Kara had been very close and worked together on their small farm out at Liberty. Harley was always happy to see me when I would make a farm call, but in the office, he knew he was the one to get the shot, not the cows. Today he sort of looked confused, like he was not sure what was going to happen next. 

   “Let’s get a weight on him, and then I will get Dave to get him up on the table,” Sandy said as she started for the scale at the end of the hall.

   “Harley, you have not lost any weight, you still weigh 108 lbs,” Sandy said, patting Harley on the head as she ushered them into the exam room. “I will get Dave, it will just be a minute.”

   I came into the exam room and swooped Harley up with both arms under his chest and belly and landed him on the exam table.

   “One of these days, you won’t be able to do that, Doc!” Frank said.

  “What brings you and Harley in to see me today?” I asked Frank with some concern in my voice. I knew things must be hard on both of them, Kara was the world to both of them.

   “Will, I am telling you Doc, old Harley here is not eating. I tell you that, and Sandy tells me he is not losing any weight. Now, how can that be, Doc?” Frank asks.

   “He must be eating something. Maybe he is cleaning up the grain after the cows.” I said.

  “No! He doesn’t eat a bite of his dog food. The only thing he eats is what he begs from me at the table. Maybe I give him more than I figure,” Frank says.

   I do a full exam on Harley, something I do with every patient. Start at the nose and end at the tip of the tail.

   “Everything looks fine, he just needs to lose some weight, like ten pounds for a starter,” I said as I lift Harley off the table. He is happy now, no shot, and he knows a treat is coming. He snatches the treat out of my hand, and it is gone in a second.

“One thing I never understand about dogs,” I said, “that treat touches his tongue of a tenth of a second, but he thinks it is the best-tasting thing in the world right now.”

   “One thing I never understand about you Vets,” Frank says, “you tell me he needs to lose weight, and then you feed him. Now, don’t you go and try to sell me some of that damn expensive dog food you have. He won’t eat a bite.”

“I won’t sell you any dog food. You just have to stop feeding him from the table. And I give him a treat so he will like coming back here. You know I have some patients who don’t think well of me.”

  “Okay, Doc, I will quit feeding him from the table. But you know, Kara has been gone for over a year now.  There is not a lot of joy in our house, for Harley or for me. Feeding him from the table is something we both enjoy.”

   “I know you guys have gone through a lot in the last year or more, but you want this guy to be around for a while. Don’t kill him with kindness. You eat your dinner, don’t look at him, or put him outside. Then you go outside and throw the ball for him a little. Don’t get so vigorous that he tears out a knee, just a little exercise. Then you sit on the front porch with him while he eats his dinner.” I explain.

   “You think that will really work, Doc?” Frank asks.

   “It might take a few days or a week or so. If the ball isn’t his thing, go for a little walk with him. What you do is not important, just spend a few minutes with him. It might even make you feel better.” I reply. “Now you do that, and then you come back in a few months, and we will talk again while Sandy gets a new weight on Harley. It doesn’t have to be an office visit.”

   As is often the case, it was over a full year before I heard anything from Frank. He had called, wanting me to look at a cow that was not coming into heat. Frank had a small place and maybe a dozen cows. He usually borrowed a bull from one of his neighbors. Not the best practice, but they were all small farms, and most of the herds were very stable. So there was not a significant risk of introducing a reproductive disease. It also meant that he needed to get his cows all bred within 2 cycles, 3 cycles at the most. He had not seen this cow in heat since he picked up the bull almost 2 months ago. If she didn’t cycle soon, she would miss her chance to get pregnant, and Frank would have to send her down the road to the sale barn.

   When I turned into the driveway, I could see Frank and Harley down by the barn. It looked like they had the cow in the small corral. Frank did not have a squeeze chute, we would have to rope her and tie her head. That would make the job a little more difficult.

   Frank’s farm was neat as a pin. Spoke of his German roots. There was nothing out of place, any manure in the corral would be quickly picked up and placed in the manure pile at the back corner of the barn. When Kara was alive, I would have to be watchful when I was working on a cow. She would be picking up manure as it fell, I would have to dodge the pitchfork as best I could. The house was close to the road. It was a small house with a large front porch, painted off white and with new black shingles on the roof. The yard was large, both front and back, and unlike the majority of farmhouses around here and where I grew up, the front door was used as the main entry. Today I noticed a new car, a little blue Ford, parked outside the garage behind the house.

   Frank and Harley were quick to greet me when I pulled up to the corral. I opened the back of my truck and pulled out the rope.

“How are things, Frank?” I asked. “It looks like you and Harley are a little brighter than when I last saw you at the clinic. Harley is trimmer, too.”

   “Yes, things have been going pretty good lately. Old Harley expects me the throw the ball a little every night, just like you suggested, Doc. I think it’s has helped us both,” Frank said.

   “Let’s get this cow looked at,” I say as I crawl over the fence with my rope in hand. I toss the lasso at the cow as she turns to the left to avoid the throw.  The rope neatly falls over her head. I pull it tight and throw the free end over the fence to Frank.

  “Take a wrap around the post there and take up the slack as I pull her into the fence,” I say as I start to pull the cow toward the fence. She probably has a name, I think to myself. She is tame, almost seems halter broke, and getting her snubbed up the post is not a problem.

   “Give me some slack, Frank, and I will get a loop around her nose, so she doesn’t choke herself,” I say.

   Frank lets out some slack, and I pull a loop of the rope through the lasso and loop it over her nose. This essentially makes a halter and prevents the noose from tightening around her neck and choking her.

   “Okay, Frank, if you could grab that other rope in the back of the truck, I will sideline her so I can do a rectal exam without chasing her rear end.”

   Frank hands me the rope, and I thread it around her neck and between her front legs, so when I closed the loop with the quick release latch, it includes her right front leg. This also is to prevent her from being choked if she struggles. I string the rope down her right side and take a wrap around the next fence post. When I pull it tight, it holds her left side against the fence. This will allow me to do a thorough rectal exam with my left arm. I am right-handed, but we were trained to use the left hand for rectal exams, so your right hand would be free to make notes or whatever is necessary.

   “What’s her name?” I ask Frank.

   “Kara called her Flossy. She was a favorite of Kara’s. That’s one reason I am anxious to get her pregnant. Will, in reality, it probably doesn’t matter Doc, I wouldn’t sell her anyway,” Frank explains.

   I pull the fingers off a plastic OB sleeve and pull it on my left arm. Then I put on a latex exam glove on my left hand. Then I pull the fingers off another OB sleeve and pull in on. This will give me full digital sensitivity and protect my hand and arm from manure. 

   After applying ample lube to my gloved hand, I grasp Flossy’s tail with my right hand and ease my left hand into her rectum. I remove several handfuls of manure from her distal colon. Then I insert my hand and arm up to my elbow. Then I sweep my hand over the brim of the pelvis. This is going to be an easy exam. The uterus is full. Flossy is pregnant, judging from the size of the cotyledons, those ‘buttons’ where the bovine placenta attaches to the uterus, I would say she was 4 months pregnant. I remove my arm and pull off the sleeves, being careful to turn them inside out as I remove them.

   “That was quick,” Frank says.

   “What is the most common reason a cow doesn’t cycle?” I ask Frank.

   “How the hell do I know, that’s why I hired you,” he replies.

   “Flossy is pregnant, probably 4 months along,” I say.

   “Impossible, there hasn’t been a bull on the place since last year,” Frank says emphatically.

“There is no question about the pregnancy, and time will confirm that. Just have to wait about 5 months. So there had to be a bull here somehow. Are you sure a neighbor’s bull didn’t jump the fence?” I said.

   “No way, there is nothing here except the cows and a couple of steers. They are getting near market weight,” Frank replies.

   “How were the steers castrated?” I ask.

   “I banded them when they little, they are about 2 years old now,” Frank replied, a little defensive now.

   “You must have missed a testicle on one of them. That is a common error, you think have both testicles in the scrotum, then when you release the rubber band, one testicle slips through the band is above the scrotum. The majority of retained testicles will not be fertile, but in reproduction, 100% certainty is difficult to obtain,” I explain.

   “That is sort of academic now. Flossy is pregnant, and you might find you have one or two the other cows calving early this year. The steers with be at market soon, so that issue is fixed. Next Spring, give me a call and I will show how to castrate young calves with a knife. That solves this problem as long as you can count to two. Plus, you end up with some nice mountain oysters to fry up,” I say.

   “I don’t know about mountain oysters. We have enough problems with regular stuff around here anymore. Peg has been doing the cooking lately,” Frank says.

   “Peg?” I ask.

   “Margaret McFadden, we call her Peg, me and old Harley,” Frank replies.

   “Yes, I know Margaret. Her and Hank used to come into the clinic. I think Hank died a few years ago,” I say.

   “My neighbor talked me into going to the Senior Center downtown. You know, a man can’t walk into that place alone without being jumped on by half the old women in the place,” Frank says as he explains their meeting. “Anyway, Peg was sort of quiet, like me. We hit it off pretty well. She has been coming out here and trying to get things straightened out.”

  “So that must explain that new little car up at the house,” I say.

  Peg was a short woman, thin but rather striking for an older lady. Her gray hair still had streaks of black in it, giving a hint to her jet black hair as a younger lady. Her facial features were almost stern until she smiled. If she had a defect, it was the prominent mole on the right side of her jaw. I often found myself looking at it rather than at her eyes. I am sure it bothered her some because she would usually cover it with her hand when she was talking. I often wondered why she didn’t have it removed.

“Yes, that is Peg’s car. She doesn’t like to ride in my old farm truck. She is sort of a city girl, you know,” Frank says. “For the most part, we get along fine. We have been talking about getting married, or at least living in the same house. But you know what they say, a skinny woman probably doesn’t like to cook. You go into a restaurant operated by a skinny woman, and you get good salads,” Frank said.

   “You might have to do the cooking, Frank,” I said

  “Now, I’m not saying anything about her cooking, but she sure cured old Harley from begging at the table,” Frank says.

Photo by superloop on Unsplash