Ashlynn
The full moon is here, tonight is the night. I am excited, yet anxious. I feel like so much is riding on this night. Mom will be running with Cody and it’s her first pack run in literally a decade. She’s probably crawling out of her skin. I say a silent prayer for her, as I move about my day
with my work.
Early this morning, one of the cows that was pregnant, fell sick. Cody and I have been working relentlessly since before dawn, checking all the cattle. I’m not sure exactly what is the problem with this little heifer, but I’m leaning towards colic. She clearly has a tummy ache, rolling around on the ground like crazy. She’s got a fever as well, and can’t take any water without spitting it right back out. I’ve given her some morphine to keep her calm, but now we need to get her into our x–ray machine. Cody has rounded up a few of the ranch hands and Garrett, my vet tech, to load her onto a little trailer, to haul her to the x–ray machine door that is located at the back of the clinic. It’s intentionally designed to open wide enough to back a horse trailer up to it.
I hear the truck backing up, and swing open the doors. Once the truck is close enough, the group of cowboys come to the back of the trailer and using a tarp with handles, they slide the mama cow out of the trailer and move her over to my x–ray machine. I have my lead on, and motion for the rest of them to head outside. Garret leads up too and we position the x–ray while he keeps his hand on the cows head so she won’t move to much. Once I shoot the film, I give Garret a head nod and he walks over behind me to look at the films over my shoulder. I take my time pointing things out to him that I can visualize clearly. Sure enough, she has a twist in her bowel. It hasn’t progressed to much, so I think we can try to get it fixed. She has a slight intussusception, and if I can’t manually fix this, I may have to try some general surgical methods. I am hoping I don’t have too. If we can’t fix this, we may have to put her down. Colic can be very painful.
“We are going to need some help Garrett, I need you to go find Mike and Jarred. Tell them to wear clothes that they don’t care about. It’s about to get messy, Garrett gives me a wrinkled nose and walks out to grab the other two vet techs. I walk over to the heifer, who is moaning and starting to thrash around again, and inject her with a little morphine. Once I’ve got the extra hands, we will sedate her and try to manipulate her intestines manually. I’m not looking forward to this one bit.
4
My three techs walk in, wearing some tattered overalls, no shirts underneath. I raise my eyebrow at them, and they all just shrug their shoulders. “About to get messy, right?” Garrett says. “No shirt on, means no shirt to ruin.” Fair enough I think.
I tell them all what we are about to do, and in sync the three of them look at me and say, “You want us to do what?”
“To late to get squeamish now boys. You had your arms up this cows uterus a month ago, let’s not pretend you don’t know what this is about.” I just shake my head as I draw up the sedation. “We will try external adjustment first, and if that doesn’t work,” I shrug. “Arms are going up the anus. Period.” Jarred acts like he’s retching in the corner and I just roll my eyes.
“Ok boys, you hold her down. I’m going to try to manipulate her intestines externally. It’s much the same way we turn calves in utero, or even horses. Once she’s calm, I need one of you on her head. It’s best if you have a knee on the neck, makes it harder for her to use her head to get up. I need one of you on her hind legs, in fact, tie them. Front and back. Whoever takes the front legs, will also help me manipulate if need be.” I watch as they all take their places, Garrett taking the front so he can assist me.
Chapter Comments
Visitor
what happened on there date where did they go and what did they do, I feel like there’s a chapter missing &
View 1 Comment >
