Gerti Calved on April 30
Gerti had a healthy bull calf!
5/16 Update: Gerti is starting to get the hang of being a milk cow not just a mom. That means letting down her milk for humans and standing still for milking. We hope that she’ll be having milk ready for our milkshare waitlist by early June.
Gerti is a very attentive mother. And very protective of her calf if you aren’t one of her people. She includes three of the four people who live here as her peeps. Everyone else, she wants them to back off.
Her calf, William Steakspeare, is thriving. (Named by Farm School students.) He still does the Jersey flop when you try to leave him there (dramatically throwing himself on the ground and not moving for 5 minutes.) Jerseys are all drama.
Ursula Updates
Ursula had severe calving complications. She is recovering well.
Details below.
We worked closely with her vet to save her; and she is recovering really well. We are grateful for excellent veterinarian care and prayers of so many.
Her calf, Milagro Bean, is thriving.
Saturday, May 16
Ursula is doing really well. We are relieved that she’s made a full recovering.
She’s happy, alert, and energetically back to wrestling with Gerti and her calf
Her cough from pneumonia is nearly gone; her injection site wound is healing up; her rumen is working well and her milk production is solid and tastes sweet as ever.
Saturday, May 9
She is improving every day and is a happy cow, energetic cow again.
+Appetite, rumen, energy level are back to normal.
+Udder & Milk - milk tastes excellent, nice cream line; formal antibiotic milk wait period (called milk withdrawal) was over on Wednesday 4/29. So we have milk available as of Thursday 4/30.
+Lungs - still coughs but a bit better every day
- She still has side effects from the aggressive treatment needed save her life on calving day— but her rough coat and injection site problems are improving. They will simply take time.
Tuesday April 28
Much better
+Appetite, rumen, energy level are back to normal. She trots over for her food, plays with her calf, bosses Gerti around. Appetite and manure are all normal.
+Udder & Milk - tastes excellent, nice cream line; formal antibiotic milk wait period (called milk withdrawal) is over on Wednesday 4/29. So we will have some milk available starting Thursday 4/30. She has less than anticipated as nearly dying takes a toll on milk production, so I’ll post a new milk schedule tonight (Tuesday) and will text folks too.
+Lungs - still coughs but a bit better every day
- She still has side effects from the aggressive treatment needed save her life on calving day— but her rough coat and injection site problems are improving. They will simply take time.
GERTI is due any day now — 4/25 to 4/28 is her official due date. We are guessing Wed -Saturday this week given her udder and pin-ligaments.
Sunday April 19
Getting incrementally better
+Appetite and rumen continuing to recover
+Udder & Milk - good
+Lungs - struggling coughing from pneumonia but less daily
- She now has side effects from the aggressive treatment needed save her life on calving day— Vet thinks we should leave the abscess and check on it regularly rather than lance it in the hopes that it regresses on its own. This avoids creating an 1) open wound with risk of infection, 2) more antibiotics to goof up her just-recovered-rumen, and 3) twice daily flushing which would be annoying to Ursula and a hassle for us. (Abscess is at injection site from calcium gluconate. Most was administered through her jugular (twice) but some was subcutaneous behind her shoulder. This underneath-the-skin administration usually causes an abscess down the road but it’s the price she pays for not dying.)
Sunday April 19
Getting incrementally better
+ Milagro Bean —he’s too heavy to pick up and weigh now; probably 150-160 pounds. Banding castration is almost finished with no complications.
+Appetite and rumen continuing to recover Manure looks normal! Yay. And she has enough energy to push Gerti out of the way again ;)
+Udder & Milk - good
+Lungs - struggling coughing from pneumonia but less daily
- She now has side effects from the aggressive treatment needed save her life on calving day— abscess at injection site from calcium gluconate. Most was administered through her jugular (twice), and some was subcutaneous on her flank— that underneath the skin administration usually causes an abscess down the road but it’s the price she pays for not dying.) Vet will come out to treat that.
Her coat looks rough - she has pain meds every other day applied topically and those have a pink dye to see where it was applied and an oil in them to keep them from dripping off so she’s got dirt that sticks to that no matter how we groom her. And her immune system is recovering so she doesn’t have her sleek I’m-in-peak-health-coat. This will recover with time.
Wednesday April 15
Getting incrementally better
+ Milagro Bean —learning how to walk on a lead rope — he’s pretty lousy at it. Prefers playing head butting games with Gerti.
+Appetite and rumen recovering
She trotted over to get grain for the first time in 3 weeks! S
Rumen is recovering. Manure is starting to look closer to normal
+Udder & Milk
Her skin on her udder and legs is healing well.
Her milk production is enough for her baby, plus 1.5 - 2 gallon each day. This is an increase from last week.
The antibiotic milk withdrawal period is 26 days, so we won’t have milk for humans until 4/29. Looks like she’s going to make it so we are dumping milk in the garden rather than freeze for Bean.
+Lungs - struggling still— pneumonia is her biggest threat now
Two more doses of steroids to open up her airways more.
Less coughing every day
Saturday April 11
Getting incrementally better
+ Milagro Bean — gained 30 pounds in 10 days! He’s up to 123 pounds as of 3 days ago. He’s now too big to lift up and stand on a scale with him. He place wrestling games with Gerti — they push each other with their heads. Gerti is gentle and bucks like he does then they go tearing around the corral.
+Appetite and rumen recovering
She still doesn’t trot over for food, but walks to it at least. Eating well. The kale plantings and mini-pastures have literally been life-saving. When she didn’t really eat for 8 days, that was usually the only thing we could get her to eat!
Rumen is still not fully populated by the right microbes - her manure is too watery. We’ve given her three fecal transplants from Gerti to help jump start her microbiome. Plus her regular probiotics and have decreased the protein in her feed and increased starch so she gets lots of energy (starch from corn) but not too much protein (which can cause runny manure and push milk production too much).
+Udder & Milk
Her skin on her udder and legs that was damaged by heat stress and her weak immune system has scabbed over and is not infected.
Her milk production is enough for her baby, plus 1.5 gallon each day. This is an increase from last week. Pleasantly surprised that she’s making more so soon. I thought she might just stay at low production this entire lactation cycle given what a severe hit her whole system took.
We are freezing her milk for Milagro Bean in case she doesn’t make it.
The antibiotic milk withdrawal period is 26 days, so we won’t have milk for humans until 4/29. We will likely start dumping some of the milk in the garden once it is clear she’s going to live.
-Lungs - struggling still— pneumonia is her biggest threat now
She is still coughing frequently but breathing is better every day
No more blood in her nares (openings of nostrils) Hooray!
Vet is considering another shot of steroids to open up her airways more.
Easter Sunday, April 5
Thank you to all who have helped physically and from afar with well wishes and prayers. We so appreciate your support.
+Appetite and rumen recovering
Still in ketosis but on the way out of it with increased appetite, rumen function, manure is almost normal
Since she is eating food well now we can put all her hypocalcemia preventatives (crushed CMPK boluses), vitamin supplements for anti-inflammation and immune support and probiotics for her rumen directly in her food, especially her new batch of spent brewers grains. This left-over-beer-mash is terrific for supporting her recovering rumen and she thinks it’s tasty so slurps up all her oral meds/supplements in it. Thank you to Tim of Carlsbad for making an early batch of beer so Ursula could have these spent brewers mashs and Kay for driving a lot to bring this to Ursula! This means no more “drenches” — liquids forced via special syringe. This is great because each drench risks getting fluids in the lungs (and she doesn’t like it.)
+Udder
Her skin on her udder has mostly healed.
Her milk production is enough for her baby, plus ½ gallon each day. This is a huge decrease from what she would have been producing at this point had she not crashed (would have been 3-4 extra gallons by now). But it is good that her body has slowed down so that she can heal with less demand on her system. It’s possible this could increase later but also possible that is stays depressed like this. We’ll see.
-Lungs - struggling still— pneumonia is her biggest threat now
She is still coughing frequently but breathing is better
- New negative development: Some blood in her nasal discharge indicating broken blood vessels/serious inflammation due to pneumonia in the lungs; this is not a good development. But she may still recover. She seems to have a strong will to live and has much more energy than two weeks ago.
Friday, April 3
Vet looked at Ursula’s lungs via ultrasound
- LUNGS: right upper lobe (cranial) is most compromised - but both upper lobes have fluid in them. More concerning is the fluid around the space between the lungs and the chest cavity (pleural effusion caused by inflammation in response to the bacterial pneumonia), which isn’t great.
Vet says her lungs are fair. But since Ursula responded really well to the steroid and antibiotics, she’s getting an additional dose of the antibiotics (for the bacterial infection in her lungs) and multiple doses of steroid (to open up airways by reducing inflammation and continue to stimulate appetite). She was not thrilled about the 5 shots it takes to give a 1200 pound animal enough antibiotics. But, the fact that she fussed more means she feels better. When I gave the same shots to her earlier in the week, she barely moved.
If she survives, and she has a decent chance of surviving, she’ll likely have scarring in her the upper lobes of her lungs.
+ Ketosis/appetite: Ursula is still eating hay and leafy greens. And vet heard rumen contractions so that’s excellent. Her manure is getting close to normal size. She still has ketosis but is improving on that front as she eats more and her rumen restarts functioning.
Good but slow progress.
MILAGRO BEAN - soon to be a steer
He was castrated today, via banding by the vet. Sooner in life is less painful. He has pain meds in him, a tetanus shot, and antibiotics. (Jersey bulls are the most dangerous of all bulls; hence why he is castrated.)
He continues to have the zoomies and is eating well. His navel stump is healing well.
Thursday, April 2
Still has an appetite, still chewing her cud, had energy to walk to pasture to graze
+ Ursula is still eating hay and leafy greens. I was worried yesterday’s appetite wouldn’t be sustained (fearful it was just a bum from the steroid) but she continues to eat almost normal amounts.
+ Breathing is better too — still coughing, head extended with squinty eyes but less raspy.
Vet is coming Friday to ultrasound her lungs to assess the pneumonia progression.
- She has skin lesions where her udder meets her legs that we’ve been treating due to heat/friction and her skin not being quite right due to her body’s extreme stress and suppressed immune system. Hoping cooler weather, smaller udder (less milk right now), and a slowly recovering immune system helps those dry out and her skin heal.
Excellent progress.
MILAGRO BEAN continues to be have the zoomies. His navel stump is healing well.
GERTI
Gerti’s stanchion training has resumed and she’s doing fine. She’s on a very low potassium diet. Next week she starts her transition diet of a bit of grain so she has the rumen microbe population to digest her lactation diet of more grain (to prevent negative energy balance and ketosis.)
Wednesday, April 1
Eating and chewing her cud for first time since calving!
This morning Ursula was chewing her cud! That means there is enough food in her digestive system for her to burp it up and chew it again! This is a wonderful development. She still needs to eat more but once she starts eating, she’ll likely want to keep eating.
Breathing is better too — still raspy, head extended with squinty eyes (this position indicates not enough oxygen) but you can’t hear her loud breathing 40 feet away
Excellent progress.
MILAGRO BEAN continues to be spunky and nursing well.
Tuesday 3/31
Decrease in alertness and appetite until she got new medicine tonight, then she ate more
Despite the cooler weather, Ursula had a rough day until 8 pm. She barely ate all day, but drank more.
Things improved at 8 p.m. Her vet ordered more aggressive antibiotics to combat the bacterial pneumonia and a steroid to help open her airways. About 2 hours after we got those in her she ate more than she’s eaten in the last week. That’s encouraging. Apparently the steroid can be increase her appetite.
We have a better pain medication too.
Her vet will come out on Friday to assess her and will bring an ultrasound machine to scan her lungs.
Monday 3/30
Slight improvement - eating a bit, brighter eyes, calf is well
Calf is named “Milagro Bean”— Milagro for all the tiny miracles in his life, his mom’s, and ours this week; Bean for his coloring and bouncy, feisty demeanor. He gets the zoomies just before he eats then nurses well and curls up in a ball for a long nap.
Thank you for your prayers, well wishes and physical help, especially while my family was gone Wednesday - Saturday. That was huge. They are back home now and Ursula is well enough that I’m not out with her in the middle of the night for hours.
APPETITE: We got her to get up to graze a tiny bit (thank heaven we planted these micro-pastures), and she ate a bit of hay on her own. We hand fed her a whole loaf of whole wheat bread (easy to digest wheat), grain balls Viv made of molasses, her dairy minerals, and supplements for her rumen and immune system. Previously she’d only eat a bit here and there even if hand fed. So while she’s only eating 1/15 of what she needs to sustain life by volume or weight, this is a significant improvement. We want her appetite to return!
RUMEN FUNCTION: no sign of her rumen really moving- no cud chewing. We gave her a fecal transplant last night to get good rumen microbes into her. How- manure from Gerti whose gut works well + water + molasses —> syringe it into her mouth. Hoping that helps populate her rumen— but her rumen needs a constant supply of food, else the microbes die, so we might be doing this every day.
PNEUMONIA: Snot is still clear not green, and she is alert enough to clean her own nose sometimes. Still horribly labored breathing which one can hear from 30 feet away. Posture is straining to get more oxygen.
ENERGY/ATTITUDE: Brighter eyes, when it is cool she will look at you not just stare straight ahead unseeing.
HYPOCALCEMIA: Has not had a hypocalcemia relapse since Tuesday—we continue to force feed her via giant syringe her calcium, phosphorous, magnesium and potassium minerals since she isn’t eating enough to to replace these each time she makes milk (a huge calcium demand)
IMMUNE SYSTEM: we don’t have a way to measure that, but since she’s under crazy metabolic and bacterial stress it is clearly suppressed.
UDDER HEALTH: still no mastitis, miraculously. We massage her udder with research-backed oils (peppermint and oregano) to keep her milk ducts moving and reduce inflammation . Milk production is down to whatever the calf drinks and ½ to 1 gallon a day, which is good. If she was still making 3 gallons a day that’s part of the milking-themselves-to-death problem.
CALF HEALTH: excellent. He’s nursing, running around and was 92 pounds on Saturday. Much heavier than we anticipated. In this photo he’s mid-bounce!
Saturday 3/28
She is still alive and is slightly better. If it will cool down she might eat some.
She is standing and at night when it is cool nibbles at food a tiny bit.
Her calf is thriving. She is nursing him and he’s figured that out so no more bottle feeding (hooray!)
No mastitis yet.
She got more antibiotics for her pneumonia yesterday.
Her breathing is labored but this morning there was less nasal discharge (green goo) so she may be beating the lung infection caused by aspirating her rumen contents on Monday night/Tuesday morning.
Thursday 3/28
Thursday 3/36 - short version: Ursula is still gravely ill, but she is standing and trying to eat. She might make it. We are cautiously optimistic and encouraged that she is trying to live.
I didn’t think she’d make it beyond Tuesday night/ Wednesday am. The second emergency vet did all she could do. Now we were in a wait and see mode. I went to bed for 3 hours thinking I’d find her dead in the middle of the night and was shocked to see her miraculously alive.
Pneumonia, ketosis, threat of hypocalcemia relapse.
If she doesn’t eat, she’ll die.
We are force feeding her meds and fluids to address the ketosis. But you can’t give a ruminant enough to live via syringe for long.
Eating a little bit and moving around more — this is a huge step in the right direction for which we are deeply grateful (and relieved).
Today hasn’t had any signs of hypocalcemia relapse. But that will happen if she doesn’t eat. She needs to get the calcium from somewhere. Continuing to syringe it down her throat is only an option for so long and increases possibility of aspiration on already compromised lungs (she got rumen fluid in her lungs early Tuesday morning when she bloated when she had stage three hypocalcemia and was paralyzed).
Calf is well: She has also nursed her calf who is healthy - a little chocolate brown bull calf with some brindle stripes in the sunlight. He can do zoomies already. Name suggestions? We are temporarily calling him Baked Bean, but “miracle” in another language would be apt.
SUMMARY: if her appetite comes back, we get her minerals in balance, and her lungs heal then she could live. But she can’t go much longer without a lot more food. Her ketosis (no fuel in her rumen - glucose stored in her liver- so she burns fat and muscle) releases nasty chemicals into her blood which depresses her appetite and suppresses her immune system to fight infection in her lungs.
What happened after she calved on Monday night?
Ursula calved on Monday at 6:15 —Healthy bull calf
Metabolic crash in the night & domino effect— two emergency vet visits in 12 hours to keep her alive
Down cow — from severe hypocalcemia (“milk fever”) — cow pulls all the calcium out of her blood to make milk, leaving her with not enough for her muscles/nerves to work so she becomes paralyzed— this is fatal if not treated with IV calcium immediately. (We had designed a diet to prevent this and gave her supplemental calcium when she calved but it wasn’t enough to prevent this. This is common in older Jersey cows.)
Gut also paralyzed —> bloat: Paralysis affects gut too (it’s has smooth muscle tissue as well) leading to down cow- nearly dead (barely breathing, low heart rate, rumen bloat) This is despite a diet designed to prevent milk fever, and preventative supplemental calcium at calving) We were sprinting to treat the bloat immediately, roll her off her side onto her sternum so she could have a fighting chance of breathing.
Aspirated contents of rumen digesta during bloating — foam comes out of their mouth and they start to suffocate from bloat, she inhaled some of her digestive juices/rumen contents —> pneumonia
Emergency vet treated hypocalcemia with IV calcium, dextrose, pain meds, treated the bloat too
Second metabolic crash Tuesday night, second emergency vet visit that day. Now in ketosis — won’t eat, negative energy situation, which further suppresses appetite.