Three emergencies in one morning: bloat, milk fever and mastitis
At a village near Nagaur a farmer keeps 6 Murrah buffaloes and 4 crossbred cows. On Monday morning three problems appear together. (i) A 6-year-old buffalo that calved two days ago is recumbent, lies with her head turned to the flank, has a rectal temperature of 37.2 °C, cold ears and rumen stasis. (ii) Three cows that grazed lush berseem after a shower have a distended left flank; one is mouth-breathing at 48 breaths/min and the others are salivating and kicking at the belly. (iii) A crossbred cow that calved 10 days ago has a hot, swollen left hind quarter; the strip cup shows clots and her temperature is 40.1 °C. The veterinary officer is 18 km away and cannot come before evening. The farmer has calcium borogluconate injection, a stomach tube, 2 litres of edible oil, and no trocar. He wants to treat all ten animals with the same antibiotic.
1. Rank the three conditions by urgency and explain why one antibiotic for all ten animals is the wrong decision.
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Rank by minutes, not by importance. First the mouth-breathing cow: bloat with respiratory embarrassment can kill within an hour. Second the recumbent buffalo: milk fever is treatable but a downer cow deteriorates fast and may aspirate if drenched carelessly. Third the mastitis cow: a quarter infection is urgent within the day, not the hour.
A blanket antibiotic is wrong on three counts. Bloat and milk fever are not infections, so the drug does nothing for eight of the ten animals. Treating healthy animals wastes money and leaves residues in milk and meat. And every treated cow's milk must be withheld, which costs the household more than the drug. The antibiotic decision belongs only to the mastitis case, and only after a strip-cup and CMT examination of all four quarters.
2. Describe what the farmer can safely do for the bloated cows and the recumbent buffalo before the veterinarian arrives, and what he must not do.
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Berseem bloat is usually frothy, so passing a stomach tube will not help and may injure the oesophagus; the foam, not free gas, is the problem. Give 500 ml–1 L of edible oil (or a simethicone-type antifoaming drench) to the affected cows and keep them walking on level ground. Do not drench the mouth-breathing cow - she cannot swallow safely and the oil may be aspirated. If there is no relief in 20–30 minutes, or she goes down, a trocar and cannula in the left paralumbar fossa is the last resort, and a layman should wait for the veterinarian rather than attempt it. Remove all berseem and offer dry straw.
For the buffalo, give 400–600 ml of 25% calcium borogluconate, warmed, slowly IV over 10–15 minutes while watching the heart - stop if bradycardia or arrhythmia appears. Keep her sitting sternally, prop her with bags and turn her every few hours. No oral calcium while she is recumbent.
3. Outline the treatment and prevention plan for the mastitis case and for the berseem feeding that caused the bloat.
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For the mastitic cow: strip the quarter out frequently, apply a hot compress, start an intramammary antibiotic as advised and an NSAID for the 40.1 °C fever, and record the milk-withdrawal date and keep her milk out of the bulk. Look for the source - wet, dung-soaked flooring, wet hands at milking, no post-milking teat dip. Screen the rest of the herd with the CMT and consider dry-cow therapy at drying off.
The bloat and the mastitis probably share a cause: wet, lush berseem. Feed legume only after it has wilted for 2–3 hours, always after some dry fodder, introduce it gradually over 7–10 days, and keep cows off wet legume after rain or irrigation. Also check that FMD and haemorrhagic septicaemia vaccination are current before the monsoon, since the herd is already stressed.