A Yorkshire Vet Through the Seasons by Julian Norton

Author:Julian Norton [Norton, Julian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books

The Mystery of the Floppy Heifers

‘Can you come and have a look, Julian? I had one of your young vets out on Sunday, but this heifer’s still not right, and there’s another one out in the field that looks like it’s heading the same way.’

I could tell from the tone of Robert’s voice that he was worried about his heifer. He was a very experienced farmer and had seen most of the diseases and problems that faced both dairy cows and their calves. He would usually give me a diagnosis before I arrived on Mowbray Farm, but today was different.

I confirmed that I would be with him as soon as I had finished afternoon surgery, but first I needed to speak with Laura, my colleague who had treated the heifer the previous Sunday. The animal had been in one of the sheds. Robert had brought her inside on the Saturday because she looked poorly – lying down when all the other animals were standing up – but, Laura explained, there was not much to go on.

‘To be honest,’ she said with a frown, ‘I couldn’t find a lot wrong with her, other than that she was lying down and wouldn’t stand up. I gave her some calcium, some anti-inflammatories and multivitamins and said to call back with a progress report. I was hoping you’d be able to have a look at her, actually, because I don’t really know what to do next.’

It was a frank and honest assessment that left me without many clues. Being a veterinary surgeon is like being a detective. As well as carrying out our clinical examination, we have to quiz the owner in detail to gain as much information as possible about the behaviour of the animal, its environment, its diet and its demeanour. Hopefully, from all this, and with the help of laboratory tests and imaging, we can then make a tentative diagnosis. In farm animals, diagnosis can be even more difficult. Clinical examination may yield less information because of the large size of the animal and, sadly, financial constraints often limit how many laboratory tests can be undertaken. For farmers trying to scrape a living from their stock, a test that costs more than the value of the animal is often not a feasible proposition (unless, of course, there are implications for the whole herd). This afternoon, I had the feeling that I was going to have to draw on my years of experience as much as anything else.

When I arrived, I found the heifer lying down, with her head lolling to one side. Her mentation didn’t seem quite as sharp as it should have been and she moved her head slowly, as if she had a headache. The first thing to do was to perform a thorough clinical examination. This was certainly going to be a diagnostic challenge.

Her temperature was slightly elevated at 102.8°F. This was a starting point, but not a tremendously helpful one. A sky-high temperature always means infection in a cow, and if we find this at the beginning of our examination, everything else is straightforward.

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