Cattle Updates

First up, the calf diphtheria case.  He decided to live.  His breathing has been normal for several weeks.

 So today, now that he was healthy,  we got him up and castrated him.

Then it was the Hereford bull’s turn for an exam.  His eye patch came off a couple of weeks ago but his eye has continued to water.

With his horns, we were not able to get him in the head gate.  We did put him up in the chute and blocked him from going backwards.  Then Joe put a halter on him and held his head around while I examined him.  See that yellowish spot at the bottom center, it is called hypopyon.  It is basically pus in the front chamber of the eye.  It is more likely that there was a penetrating wound to the eye.  It does not look like pinkeye like the seller had said.   Ideally, you would treat it with topical medication 3 to 4 times a day.  Obviously that is not going to happen.  So we will just have to wait and see what happens.

Then lastly, we sent our second beef off to be processed.  She was a half jersey we had gotten as a baby calf to graft on a cow that had lost a calf.  Since she really wasn’t a match to the calves we send to the feedlot, we kept her to feed here as a beef.  Joe has been feeding her grain twice a day for four months.  He was glad to have one less chore now.