Friday, July 25, 2008

We lost Landis.




One of our most important cow just had to be put down this past Tuesday. She was only four and a half years old.
On Friday night she got done milking as she was on of the last cows to be milked ( show cows and fresh cows go last)
She had just calved a few days earlier and was fat. She is also very big. She has been in a grass pasture and had lost a lot of weight but we could not put her on a diet since she was pregnant so the pasture was healthy for her and baby.
Well we are in the barn and my husband goes looking for her on the pasture since she did not come in to eat and he wanted to get her to her special pen.
The cows get food outside in the pasture and inside in the big freestall barn and they usually like to come in because of water.
She would always come into the barn since she knows she gets special food in her pen.
He finds her a few feet from the exit of the milking barn down on the floor.
The nightmare started that second . This was 9:30 at night. Next morning at 5:00 AM my hubby leaves for a two and a half hours drive one way to get the
AQUACOW for her. He gets back home and we get her in and fill up with water. She cannot float her hips and hind legs.
She is so big and the aqua cow is even small for her but it helps to keep the weight off.
We keep her in for a few hours and then drain and we do that Saturday and Sunday all day and night. She is eating great and she is feisty and fighting every minute of it.
On Monday he drives again for another 5 hours to get a sling and see if that would help.
Again not working so good and she is also a bit to big for it.So we load her in to the trailer and take her to the University of Wisconsin -Madison where they are the best.
There they have a special sling that takes the cow to an aqua cow with controlled temperature and they can finally examine her and x- ray her.
They have state of the art stuff for cows there.
Hubby got home at 100AM.
The chief intern calls this morning ( She is awesome and has saved many famous Dairy Cows like the Jersey
Veronica)

Well Landis dislocated her hips so bad there was nothing they could do.
She thinks it is because she was so fat that it was so badly dislocated ( probably got into a "fight")
We had to put her down. My husband is devastated.
We couldn't even save her ovaries since she just calved and its not cycling yet.

11 comments:

Schuyler said...

Oh Alex and Brian I'm sorry. That must have been a very hard and intense few days.

Love to you all.

Deanne said...

I'm so sorry for you both. Landis was blessed to have such loving caretakers while here.

Anonymous said...

ah that is so sad- can I ask what you wouls have done with her ovaries if you could have saved them-

Alex Polikowsky said...

Thanks everyone.
Julie- We would have harvarsted her eggs to make babies out of her.
We do a lot of genetic work with our cows and Landis is irreplaceble.
She was very special in many ways.

gail said...

I'm very sorry Alex. My thoughts are with you.

Anonymous said...

Sorry for this tragic loss :(

Melissa said...

Sorry somuch.

I hope her calf is going well. Perhaps that helps sooth a little bit.

Carolyn said...

Poor thing........ sorry to hear about your cow.

I just jumped over from Touch the Earth. I just wanted to say Hi and nice blog!

Alex Polikowsky said...

thanks everyone!

Heather's Moving Castle said...

i can't believe i didn't see this post last time i was on here. sorry for your misfortune of losing a great cow friend.

Alex Polikowsky said...

Heather!! no problem. That is why I showed you the Aqua Cow on my yard! It is still here.