You just never know what a new day will bring. I stumbled upon this photo from last fall (OCT 3, 2019) and wanted to share it here. I had an emergency call with a cow that was drooling excessively and was bloated. When the tube wouldn’t pass through her mouth to the rumen, he found something in the way. Instead of making his left hand disappear into the back end of the cow, today he made his right hand disappear into her mouth, into her esophagus, and just at the end of his reach was the culprit – a big apple. He was able to pull the apple out and passed a tube to her rumen to relieve the air. She should do really well. Cows live on the “eat now, chew later plan” and will swallow larger bites to ruminate and chew later. But there are limits. The apple was too big and blocked the cow’s ability to belch air, so air builds up in her rumen. If it persists too long, pressure builds up against her diaphragm, preventing her from fully inflating her lungs, and can lead to death. This cow was lucky and was much relieved to let out a good burp. An apple a day doesn’t always keep the doctor away. Also, how cool is this barn?
windshieldrambling.com 