I'm over bloat.

[carragheendexters]

We had another cow bloat today, and I thought I would put some photos on here of her for people who may never have seen what a bloated cow looks like.

By the way, this cow, Erinmore, has been on bloat treatment along with all of our cows for the last 8 weeks since we had the Autumn break.

We use alcohol ethoxylate in their water at the prescribed strength, we find this is a more surefire way of getting the treatment into them as compared to bloat blocks (which over here also contain alcohol ethoxylate. Bloat still happens even when they are on preventative measures.

I don't have a photo of when we first detected her, I was too busy getting her treated in case things went pear shaped. I took these photos after she starting to belch and go down. When I found her she wasn't distressed and was still eating, however she was doing lots of little poops, so she was feeling somewhat uncomfortable in her stomach.

We first drenched her with 1 cup (250ml) canola oil, massaged her rumen and walked her around. I wasn't happy with how she was going, not much belching happening, so I gave her another cup of oil, repeated the massaging and walking. She then started to do big belchs, so I was happy to snap away then, sure that she would be okay. Once she was looking good I gave her plenty of cereal hay to get her ruminating and producing saliva.

Tonight she is well, as if nothing had happened.

The first 2 photos are after the 2 doses of oil and she has started to go down

This last photo of Erinmore is 30 minutes later. You can see how she has gone right down and actually looks quite hollow after lots of pooping and lots of belching. She has such a messy butt after all of that pooping. Poor girl, she had  such a bad morning.

[ladena]

You must have to do constant monitoring of your herd this time of year. She is still quite bloated in the pictures and I can't imagine it being larger. How long does it take to swell?

take care, LaDena

[zephyrhillsusan]

Good job catching it! Thanks for sharing the photos. I have photos of my Ebby when she bloated, but she wasn't as bad as that. If I finally get caught up on everything I plan to do a blog post about it, and I'll put a link to this thread because the photos are so helpful.

[outofthebox]

I don’t know what it is we do or don’t do – but I’m so glad its not an issue we have.

We have paddock dams and would find it very difficult indeed to use preventative water treatments.

Glad she looks like she is on the mend.

[carragheendexters]

Hi LaDena,
we always check our cattle 3 times a day. First thing in the morning, then again at lunch time and again in the late afternoon. It is just how we manage our cattle and pastures, labour intensive but very successful as far as growing great pasture. The risk of bloat is one of the down sides of great pasture. Unfortunately the winter grasses aren't active enough as yet to keep up with the clover, but as winter progresses we will have more of a balanced pasture. They blow up fairly quickly, the reason I think this happened was that it was a particularly dewy day and we had a heavy fog till later in the morning, this all contributes to the risk.

You are more than welcome to use the photos Susan, to illustrate bloat. She was larger but as I was on my own I wasn't wasting time getting photos at first, not until I was sure she was going to be OK. Things can go pear shaped very quickly, and being on my own I didn't know whether I would be able to trocar her on my own or needed to get Don home or the vet out if things went bad. She was right as rain afterwards and no after effects thank goodness, back to grazing that afternoon.