Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Today was herd health. Normally it starts at 7:30 but the vet was coming today so we started around 6:15. The vet was really nice, he’s only 2 years out of vet school (Tufts). Before he got there, we had to check all the fresh cows (cows that have just calved). We look for elevated temperatures and stuff like that. Some also have mastitis so we check on them. Anna said the main cause of mastitis here is Klebsiella. (Thesis idea! What are the main causes of mastitis at Horizon Dairy Farm?) I helped take temperatures and give cows shots of Banamine (a pain reliever) and Ex-sel (A broad spectrum antibiotic). Then I helped check the list of cows that had been given shots of GNRH (gonadotropin-releasing hormone) to prep them for breeding, if they weren’t pregnant. These were also the cows that had to be preg checked. When Matt (the vet) got there we went into the barn and started checking. Matt talked about how he palpated cows and also explained their whole reproductive cycle. He was very good at explaining and I would like to have him for a professor (too bad he’s not one). For instance, he explained that estrogen and progesterone have names that makes sense: estrogen generates estrus, and progestoreone prolongs gestation. At one point he was talking about making decisions about whether a cow is open or not and he talked about it being a cost benefit analysis and that made me think of Chris. He is leaving in July for a small animal practice that pays better. I was sorry to hear that because it seems like no one stays in large animal and I hope I won’t have to leave for financial reasons. When we got to the heifer barn, I got to palpate a cow. That means I put on a long plastic glove and stuck my whole arm inside the cow and felt its organs through the intestinal wall. I think I found the uterus but I couldn’t feel the fetus.

Barn cats in the horse barn: