Food for thought (a 3 course meal.....)

This week was a busy week. I’m not sure I was home much before 7pm most nights. I had several routine herd checks, a couple C-sections (on a Nigerian dwarf goat and a cow), calvings, sick cows and other “routine” things.

One of my herd checks was at one of our organic dairies. When I meet people that feel Organic products are so much better I like to ask the question “why?” What is it about Organics that makes you think that it is better? Most respond with “Because it’s milk and meat with no antibiotics in it and won’t cause antibiotic resistance in humans.” Unfortunately, this is a very superficial and un-informed understanding of what conventional farming is.

So, I thought I would clarify some things.  I realize I’m opening a can of worms with this one, but I feel like I should give a perspective from a veterinarian’s point of view (mine). I’m ready for all rebuttals….

Now, I’m all for people making their own choices, but I hope these choices are based on true educated facts rather than perceived opinions.  I have friends that are organic farmers so I’m not against it, I just feel that the public in general is misguided on the differences between conventional and organic.

Let’s start with a “definition.” Organic farming means that there is no antibiotic use on the animals for any reason (except in the case of life or death), no pesticides used on the crops and the crops are fertilized with only manure.  Let’s start with the animals…

During my routine herd check on my organic dairy, there were several cows that had hairy heel warts on their feet. Heel warts are caused by a spirochete. They are very contagious, painful and occur most commonly when the feet of cattle remain wet, and soft. There was one poor Jersey who was only standing on 3 legs because the wart was so big and painful, she couldn’t put the other foot down. Treatment in a conventional system, is cleaning the area of the wart, and applying oxytetracycline directly to the wart, and wrapping the foot so the meds stay in contact with the wart, killing it in 3-4 days.

Unfortunately, organic dairies can’t use tetracycline and have no efficient way of killing the warts, even though it is a topical administration. Other options for helping with warts, is using formaldehyde (dangerous) or a copper sulfate foot bath. Unfortunately, farmers have to be careful with amount of copper they use, as it ends up on the fields and can cause issues with the soil and runoff.  The copper doesn’t kill the warts, but rather hardens the hoof to prevent the spirochetes from having a medium to latch onto. These cows were going to have to rely solely on their own immune system with the help of a mineral supplement to help clear the warts.

The biggest concern that many people have with the use of antibiotics in conventional farming, is that the antibiotics end up in the milk and we are going to have an entire nation of resistant bacteria. The truth is- milk gets tested up to FOUR times before it ever reaches a milk carton.  If any ONE of those tests comes back with an antibiotic residue, the entire load of milk gets dumped down the drain. That can be 7000-8000 gallons of milk! That’s a lot of money for a farmer to pour down the drain, and is more than enough incentive to make sure there are no antibiotics in the milk.  Secondly, there are only about 4-5 types of antibiotics that are legal to use in dairy cows that are making milk: Penicillins, Tetracyclines, Ceftiofurs and one kind of Sulfa.  These antibiotics are some of the oldest antibiotics found and still have retained effectiveness in dairy cattle.  The really good drugs are saved for the humans.  

So when we give a cow an injection of antibiotics how do we know how long to wait before selling the milk???? Most antibiotics are metabolized through the liver and kidneys of animals (and humans). Depending on the type of antibiotic used, there are different “withdrawal times” that drug companies have spent many years and millions of dollars in scientific studies to figure out.    These withdrawal times are based on those studies. Amoxicillin, for example, is metabolized and is no longer detectable in the milk after 48 hours and is not detectable in the muscle, 7 days after the last injection.  Responsible farmers strictly adhere to these withdrawal times and some even add an extra day or two just to make sure, the antibiotic has been cleared from the cows system.  While the cow is clearing the antibiotics from her system, the milk is not sold for human consumption. Often times it is dumped down the drain on the farm.

Now from a humane standpoint, if a cows’ life is in danger, it is required that the cow be treated with antibiotics to save her life. She is no longer considered “organic.” The plus side to this is that Organic farms have to have really healthy cows in a really good environment.  If anyone has kids or knows kids, it doesn’t matter how healthy your kids are, various stresses, weather changes and environment changes can cause a really healthy child to become sick.  Cows have the same issues. 

As the veterinarian prescribing the antibiotics these conventional dairies use, it is my license on the line if my clients misuse the antibiotics. As the veterinarian for this farm, there is nothing more that I wanted to do for these cows, than to put tetracycline on all these very painful warts so they could walk on the 4 legs God gave them.  

Whether you choose to drink organic milk or milk from a conventional dairy, know, that farmers, and the veterinarians that are prescribing the antibiotics, are doing everything they can to make sure that the milk you drink is the most wholesome product you put in your body!

I’ll save fertilizers and pesticides for another day.  But, hopefully I’ve enlightened you to some of the differences between organic and conventional farming. If you still choose to eat/drink organic products, I’m okay with that.  But let me leave you with one final thought… If your child has been diagnosed with pneumonia, are you going to ask your doctor for Aloe pills and Garlic or the strongest antibiotic he can give so that your child suffers no longer than absolutely necessary????  (Getting off my soap box now.)

Yup, I "burn" calves...

It’s cold outside.  It's a great time of year for skiing, sledding, maybe some ice fishing (if you like that sort of thing) and for dehorning calves…

It seems in the last week or so, I’ve had calves to dehorn at several farms, and of several shapes and sizes.  Dehorning calves seems to be one of the ethical issues that face agriculture today. Many think it’s cruel to “burn” the heads of baby calves.   However, anyone who works with cattle with horns, on a daily basis, knows that cows very quickly learn that they have weapons on top of their head, and use them.  When I was a teenager, I was pinned against the wall in our barn by a yearling heifer. It was unprovoked; I actually just finished cleaning her stalls and putting down fresh bedding.  Luckily she didn’t have horns (and my brother came to my rescue). If she did, I would not be alive today with the way she was pounding her head into my stomach.  

Dehorning calves is not a “Veterinary” specific job. Most of our clients have been trained on dehorning calves. However, there are some that just prefer to have the veterinarian do it.  It's one less job for the farmer, as they have enough to do.  One of my clients does not dehorn calves if they are suffering from pneumonia or are sick in anyway at the time they are dehorning the rest of calves that age. These calves end up getting overlooked and then when they calve in with their own calf, I get to take off the massive horns.  This is a good workout to say the least.

There are breeds of cattle that are “polled,” which means that they genetically do not have horns. Unfortunately, they are mostly beef breeds, and beef breeds are not dairy breeds in many ways…..

Now there is a humane and inhumane way to dehorn calves.  Ideally calves are dehorned when they are 1-2 weeks old. At this age, the “horn bud” which is the area where the horn cells are and will continue to develop, is very small with minimal blood supply. As the calves get older, the horn is bigger, it takes longer to cauterize the area around the horn, and the process may be more stressful to the calf.   

To start, I “block” the nerve that runs to the area of the horn on each side of the head, with lidocaine.  This is the most difficult part of the process, but by far the most crucial.  After just a minute or two, the area is completely numb. The area over the horn bud can be clipped so that there is less hair covering the area and therefore less burnt hair smell during the process.  It also helps to better visualize the horn bud.

There are several different instruments that can be used to dehorn calves. I use a butane dehorner which is a burning dehorner.  This dehorner works great for little calves with little horns.  The dehorner is preheated so that it is as hot as it can get and therefore completely cauterizes the area so there are no remaining horn cells to continue to grow and cause what we call “scurs.” In these pictures, the calves were a bit older so I was using an electric dehorner, which has a bigger burning area for the bigger horns.

The calf’s head is restrained with either a halter or by straddling their head with my legs, and holding them in a “headlock” position.  The hot dehorner is placed on the horn bud for 10-15 seconds until the area around the horn bud has been completely cauterized.  The process is repeated on the other side and the area is sprayed with a bandage spray.  These pictures were all taken in succession and you can see that the heifers went right to eating and hanging out immediately after they were dehorned. 

With proper pain mediation, dehorning is a painless event in a calf’s life. If the nerve is properly blocked, they rarely struggle and the little ones will even continue to suck on your finger while you are dehorning them.   As a veterinarian, I am also an educator; as are all veterinarians. It is our responsibility to train ALL of our clients to dehorn calves in a humane way, so that media has no footage to show the inhumane way of dehorning.

Got Blood??

Happy New Year!

Wow, it’s been two weeks since I’ve last posted! I went through all my calls of the last week, and was trying to remember some of the “not so ordinary” calls.  On Friday I was called to do a blood transfusion on a calf. This calf was suffering from profuse watery diarrhea-most likely from septicemia.

The blogger won't let me load any pictures today, so I apologize for a "read only" post!

If baby calves do not get clean, good colostrum, are born in a dirty environment or suck on dirty teats from Mom, there is opportunity for fecal material to enter the calf orally or via their umbilical cord. This is one of the many reasons that we remove the calf from the cow as soon as the cow has had the opportunity to lick the calf off.  These newborns have very little immune system and rely solely on the antibodies that are found in colostrum from the cow. The better the cow’s immunity, the better start the calf will get once it is fed its colostrum. However, even if they are fed the best colostrum in the world, if there body is overwhelmed with bacteria; they may still end up septic.  They dehydrate very rapidly, as they have very little body reserves, and can suffer many subsequent issues based on electrolyte and fluid imbalances in the body.

Most of the time, we try to rehydrate these calves by putting in an IV catheter and running fluids and electrolytes directly into the vein. We also start them on antibiotics to help with the septicemia.  If the situation is severe enough, we can give a blood transfusion. This is essentially adding more antibodies from an older healthy cow, directly to the calf so that it has a better chance to fight off the bacteria. It can drastically help a calf if it is done early enough in the disease process.  To perform a blood transfusion we find an older, healthy cow that has been screened for various diseases based on the individual farm.  We then restrain the cow, clip an area over her jugular vein, sterile scrub the area and insert a needle into the vein. The blood collection bag has “suction” to it, much like the ones used when humans give blood, so it fills automatically.  The bag also has an anti-coagulant in it so that the blood does not clot as the bag is filling.

Once the bag is full, it is time to prep the calf for the transfusion. The calf is pre-medicated with a steroid so that it decreases the chance of having an immune reaction to the blood it is receiving. Cows have many different blood “types” so we don’t really worry about having to cross match the donor’s blood with the calf.  Cross matching is much more important in horses, dogs, and cats, where there are fewer blood types.  The calf is then restrained, the area over the jugular vein is clipped and scrubbed and an IV catheter is placed. We then attach the blood bag and a bag of fluids to the catheter and slowly give the calf the blood.  The whole process takes no more than an hour and within several hours the calf will often appear to perk up and start drinking on its own.  It’s rare that a calf will get a second transfusion.

Blood transfusions work, but they are a band-aid. We only perform blood transfusions a handful of times a year. If calves are born in clean, dry environments, given good quality colostrum within 6 hours of birth and are kept in a clean dry environment after being removed from the cow, they take off and do well from the start.  The majority of our clients know this, and do a great job at getting calves off to a great start. However, no system is 100% perfect and sometimes we need a band-aid to help a few along.