# downer cattle



## agmantoo (May 23, 2003)

If a person has cattle there will be a time that one will go down. I am curious as to what various people do when that situation occurs. Additional what is your best guess as to the percentage of downers that eventually get back on their feet? Thanks for your inputs and insight.


----------



## genebo (Sep 12, 2004)

I don't know a thing about downers, but I did have to deal with a 700 lb. wild hog that I had to shoot. I called a pet food processing plant. They would buy it for $.10/lb. if we brought it to them. We did.

The hog had some severe cuts and was badly infected. It didn't bother them.

I see ads in the cattlemen's magazines for people who will buy downer cattle. They don't say how much they will pay.

Genebo
Paradise Farm


----------



## glenn amolenaar (Mar 3, 2007)

Agmantoo, 
I think the odds of a downer recovering are very low. On our farm I can only recall three or four making a good full recovery this is a span of 29 years. I have worked on several farms both dairy and beef it seems the beef will recover before the dairy cow,I think the dairy cow is pushed to hard. We had two cows go down in last couple of weeks lost both extreem cold, snow and ice. Glenn


----------



## DaleK (Sep 23, 2004)

After about 2 days down I think it's less than 10%. I try to get them either on grass or a lot of sand immediately then go on with feeding/watering, turning them from side to side, milking them out as much as I can. If they aren't making some motion to get up after 3 days they get a bullet, saving the odd one that might make it after that point isn't worth prolonging the suffering for the ones that don't.


----------



## francismilker (Jan 12, 2006)

Agmantoo,
My bosses' father is a retired vet and they got the notion to try to capitalize off of the downer cattle that made it to the sale barn on the hoof before they went down and the sale barn. They started buying them for $30 each. (no matter what they weighed) Out of the nine downer cows they picked up last year, they only got one to a full recovery and back to the sale barn to capitalize on. They others seen a .22 calibur for their last look at life. My thoughts are if a retired vet with all the medicine and tools to take care of them can't get them going, I probably can't either. I've only had two cows go down on me personally and both of them got up. One had severe paralysis after calving.(down for five days with me carrying buckets of feed and water to her) The other, a bad case of milk fever.(just took a couple bottles of calcium IV and a couple days of TLC) It took more TLC than I had the time for, but I already had so much in them, I had to go for it.


----------



## ksfarmer (Apr 28, 2007)

Not much luck with downers over the years. Did have one down from calving, I hauled feed and water twice a day for a week, finally gave up and got out the rifle, as I walked up, she jumped up and walked away. Guess she thought it was time. Others never made it, depending on why they went down, usually not much need to prolong the inevitable after 2 or 3 days. Some I had the dead animal truck pick up, some if in a isolated location, I left for the predators to clean up.


----------



## ozark_jewels (Oct 7, 2005)

We have had a few downer cows over the years. Varying causes. None ever got up. We tried saving two downer cattle for beef neighbors(they left the cows out in the hot summer sun with no food and no water for several days without doing anything for them :flame: ), they were put down after 10 days of trying everything we could think of. The ones I have had, I always ended up regretting that we didn't put them down right away.....one cow we kept turning from side to side every day, she had a great appetite and drank well. She seemed to be ok, but after two weeks of this, we came home one day to find her with her head downhill, on her chest and dead. She had wallered herself into a downhill position and couldn't get back up. She had just died and was still warm. I cut her open for the dogs to eat. She had the most awful massive bruises from laying on soft pasture.......it was awful and pitiful. If I had known how much pain she must have been in......I will never let a downer go past 3 days to a week again.


----------



## Jennifer L. (May 10, 2002)

Mine usually go down from pinched nerve at calving. IF they can raise themselves at all, like their hocks are still on the ground but their butt is raised in the air, these cows with care will usually get up in time. They are able to shift their weight from one side to the other by themselves. If you have to do this for them, forget it and shoot them. There is no way they'll ever get up.

If you get the cow that slips and splits herself, these are a little more iffy, as you don't know if something is just sprained or if they've actually fractured their pelvis. I've had cows that do down from a splitting type fall to recover and milk again. If this happens to a calf, which it did with one of mine once, they are so lightweight that they can heal still lying down, so don't move on getting rid of a calf too fast. I had a two month old calf live on top of my compost pile one winter for 6 weeks. I boxed it in for her with plywood and put a tarp roof on it, and she was cozy in there with the heat from the pile. She got up at the six week mark from a total split on ice where I'm sure she fractured.

In all cases it is imperative that the cow instantly be removed from a concrete/slippery setting to dirt. If the cow tries to get up and slips just once more, that may be all she wrote on that animal. They need to be gotten out of the barn as soon as you find them down. There's a real small window there where the cow is hurt but still can heal, and where she keeps trying to get up in conditions where she won't be able to and ends up hurting herself more/permanently. Their footing has to be perfect if they are ever going to recover.

It's depressing as all get out having a cow go down, but the morning that you go out to take care of that down cow and SHE'S NOT WHERE YOU LEFT HER! is the greatest feeling on earth. When you look around and find her standing up 50 feet from where you left her still down the night before, it's just the best. 

Jennifer


----------



## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

I think the success or failure of saving downer cows less to do with footing than how their bodies react to being down. It takes a very short time for the muscles to atrophy and that alone is a death sentence but often the final chapter is written when pneumonia sets in from lack of activity. In all the years I've had cattle, I've only ever had one cow that recovered from being down and she had a fractured pelvis from slipping on ice.


----------



## Oxankle (Jun 20, 2003)

I had one go down a couple years back and had a chat with the vet about it. 

Vet told me that after about three days the cow's nerves and muscles suffer an atrophy which makes it unlikely they will ever recover. Local cattlemen tell me that they have had cases where a cow recovered after weeks down, but they do not tell me how many they lost. 

I put my cow down, called the used cow truck and they hauled her away. Today they would charge me to haul her off.
Ox


----------



## Ronney (Nov 26, 2004)

An interesting thread Agmantoo. Like most cattle people, I've had my share of downer cows - and calves - and haven't lost one. 

They have gone down for various reasons but as has been pointed out, the biggest killer is lack of blood to the muscles and to that end they are got into a cow sling as soon as possible. Sometimes it isn't always feasible to do this in the early stages of a cows illness so I turn them from one side to the other 5-6 times a day and work their legs and often get a kick for my troubles. Then out comes the tractor with the FEL, they are put into the sling and raised and lowered every hour or so. Very time consuming but man, is it worth it when they walk out of that sling. 

Do none of you use cow slings? They are worth their weight in gold.

Cheers,
Ronnie


----------



## Up North (Nov 29, 2005)

AquaTherapy is showing promise and resulting in some saved animals, particularly in the U.S, dairy industry. here is an example of how it goes, 
*click on "products" or 'operating" menu choices in link:

http://www.aquacowsystem.com/aquacow.html


It works for dairies in California, New Mexico, Texas. It can work in other areas as well but naturally cold weather and freezing temps are a detriment to it's implementation.
The cost of owning said system for an owner of one to ten cows may be prohibitive.
My BIL was able to hire a custom service to come to his farm in southern WI with a flotation system and float one of his expensive registered Holsteins that had gone down. It worked for him, that time. But he was in an area where he could hire the service without incurring the cost of owning the system.

The key to downer cow therapy of any form is to treat it as an acute emergency and put all efforts to it right away. Every hour that elapses reduces your chance of a favorable outcome.


----------



## Ralph in N.E.Oh (Sep 14, 2006)

Like stated above most downers don't recover.

I was a butcher for over 20 years. I saw many downers, folks would actually leave them down long enough that the hide would rot ( just like bedsores in a human). These same people would then want the animal put into hamburger for their family. In every case I have seen, the stress on the animal causes a slight fever along with general sickness. The meat doesn't come off the bones too well and is real sticky. It would pass inspection, but sure was much different than meat from healthy animals.

Now in Ohio, downer cattle are prohibited to be processed. The animal must walk in on her own. This is a result of the mad cow disease. The only bad thing is that now those folks who would wait for days and days on a downer to get up, now wait until the animal eventually dies .... a very slow and inhumane way to die.

I can see waiting 24 to 48 hours, but after that, a responsible person will put the animal down. The only exception for me is this; If it split, or has another obvious injury, broken leg etc, butcher the animal yourself at home as soon as possible after the injury. Otherwise, in my opinion, they are not fit to eat.


----------



## ozark_jewels (Oct 7, 2005)

We used slings on a few of the downer cows I have dealt with. The other two it wasn't possible.


----------



## ozark_jewels (Oct 7, 2005)

Ralph in N.E.Oh said:


> Now in Ohio, downer cattle are prohibited to be processed. The animal must walk in on her own. This is a result of the mad cow disease. .


Isn't it that way everywhere in the US now?? I know it is here in Missouri....I thought it was country wide. Same thing for the butcher who comes out to the farm. The animal must be standing for him to do anything with it.


----------



## dosthouhavemilk (Oct 29, 2004)

Ralph in N.E.Oh said:


> Now in Ohio, downer cattle are prohibited to be processed. The animal must walk in on her own.


 This was the issue we ran into when Alpine (20 month old double Berretta bred pregnant Jersey heifer) was hit by a drunk driver. The local processor refused to take her if she could not walk (there was a set amount of feet) on her own. She could walk, but, being a Jersey, she needed some prodding and encouraging to do so, which of course is not allowed. The driver had broken a rear leg above the joint.
We ended up having to have a local Amish family butcher her out because the local butcher was worthless. 
So much for compassion and concern for the animals themselves...gotta love those regulations. :grump: 


We've had downers get up with care and work and some that don't.
There are no guns on the property. We work to save them when at all possible. The few downers we get that is.


----------



## Ralph in N.E.Oh (Sep 14, 2006)

It may very well be that downers are not allowed to be killed in all slaughterhouses nationwide, But I know for certian that it can't be done here.I just didn't want to speak out of turn for other folks.
I am sure you are correct, due to BSE, also known as mad cow disease.

As for slaughtehouse owners, they have no choice in the matter, they would loose their liscense for killing one , even though it was custom (for you)


----------



## ozark_jewels (Oct 7, 2005)

Yeah, its a good law overall......just makes things hard when things like accidents happen.


----------

