What to do at home if a cow has a stomach and how to start it
The digestion of cows must be adjusted to keep them healthy. But frustration and other problems often occur. A cow's stomach can stop working for several reasons. Consider what can be done if a cow has a stomach, the causes and symptoms of this condition, methods of diagnosis and treatment, and how to prevent this from happening in the future.
Causes of Stomach Stopping
Cows, like all herbivores, have problems with digestion quite often. Often this is due to mistakes in feeding livestock: when eating poor-quality feed, cold or, conversely, hot wet food. Cattle are not very picky and can eat almost everything that they are given, even inedible objects that get into their mouth with feed in the pasture or in a feeder.
Fasting can lead to a stop of the stomach, after which the animal begins to eat the offered food with greed, fills the stomach, and its work stops. Large, not cut into pieces vegetables and root vegetables, falling into the rumen, can also cause it to stop. Foreign objects such as stones, bones can cause malfunction. When they get stuck in the esophagus, they block it. Calves, especially small ones, may have stomach cramps from fright. Esophageal spasm can occur due to trauma to its walls, due to tumor diseases - tuberculosis or leukemia.
Digestion can stop due to blockage of the book. Pathology is characterized by the obstruction of this section of the stomach of cattle for food due to its filling with solid components of feed, sand, earth, eaten by the cow along with the feed. They do not pass further along the digestive tract and dry up.
It provokes a violation of prolonged grazing of livestock on pastures with a poor composition of vegetation, feeding of contaminated grain waste, straw chops, large quantities of whole grain, husks from millet, oats and cotton. Sand and soil end up in the stomachs due to the fact that cows in the pasture eat, in addition to grass, and soil - due to a lack of salt and mineral elements in the feed.
Atony of the book occurs in cattle leading a sedentary lifestyle, living in stalls, rarely going out for a walk. The pathology is also typical for animals with chronic diseases of the proventriculus, and also occurs in pregnant cows in the middle of pregnancy.
Symptoms and Signs
If the stomach is not working, it will be seen immediately. In an adult animal or calf, belching disappears, there is no chewing gum, it refuses to eat.Stands with head tilted, mouth slightly open and jaws moving. The cow fancies her tail, breathes heavily, with shortness of breath, can cough. Nervousness, anxiety appears, productivity sharply decreases. The temperature rises, the pulse quickens, the intensity of peristalsis of the abomasum and intestinal tract decreases. The animal may experience pain, moan, moan, gnash its teeth.
In case of poisoning in cows, vomiting, shortness of breath, nasal mucus discharge, sclera turn yellow, coordination of movements may be impaired.
Diagnostic methods
The problem is diagnosed by clinical signs, by the fact that the animal refuses to eat, there are no signs of digestive activity. It is necessary to take into account what the animal ate before the stomach stopped, whether it could have been poisoned.
How to get a cow's stomach up
There are several methods of treating the disorder. Depending on the cause, medication therapy, surgery, mechanical extraction of the object are used. Alternative methods of treatment are also effective in this case.
Removing a foreign body
If the object is stuck in the esophagus within reach, it can be removed manually. First, you need to tie or fix the animal so that it does not move. To prevent the cow from closing its jaws, put a wedge between the teeth, wrap a towel around the hand and run it down the throat. Remove the stuck object.
Sometimes this method also helps: you need to pull on the tongue of the animal to induce vomiting. Thus, he manages to free himself from the annoying object.
If this is not possible, the object can be pushed inward using a special probe. To make it pass freely, before starting the procedure, you need to pour 0.5 liters of vegetable oil into the animal's throat. For the effectiveness of the probe, it is recommended to pour water with it, which will push the object inside.
Drug treatment
If the stomach has become from overfeeding or large food, medicines are needed. Moreover, they must enter the cow's body quickly, since stopping digestion brings not only discomfort, but also harm to the animal.
To make the stomach work, the cow or calf is injected intramuscularly with antispasmodics, for example, "No-Shpu", "Sulfocamphoin" and "Oxtetracycline". At the same time, a scar massage is carried out in the area of the hungry fossa, active movements stimulate the work of all digestive organs.
Surgical intervention
If the previous methods that can be used to treat cows do not work, the object remains in the esophagus, the cow needs to undergo surgery. The esophagus is opened for the animal and a foreign object is removed.
Folk remedies
At home, you can give a calf or a cow a pickle from pickled or salted vegetables. It contains a lot of salts, vitamins, acids, just necessary for the normal digestive activity of ruminants. You can give mineral water or lactic acid solution, hellebore tincture, diluted in 0.5 liters of water.
Another way: dissolve 100 g of yeast in a glass of water, leave for half an hour. Then add 0.2 l of vodka and 100 g of sugar. In total, 1 liter of the mixture should come out, if the volume is insufficient, you need to add water. 2 times a day, liquid is poured into the cow's throat, this continues for several days in a row.In the household, a decoction of medicinal herbs is used: St. John's wort, flax seeds, yarrow leaves. They are also given 2 times a day.
Eating after starting the stomach
When it was possible to start the stomach, the cow needs to be kept on a starvation diet for a day, only water should be given. Then give her fresh dried grass or good hay. You can feed a liquid bran mash. During the first day, the animal does not interfere with a massage of the abdomen. This is to keep the stomach from stopping. The cow should drink plenty. Walk livestock only on a site free of foreign objects or grazing.
Problem prevention
To keep the stomach from stopping and to work stably, you need to feed the cow properly. Do not delay feeding so that the animal does not feel hungry. Give plenty of water. The food should always be fresh, the quality of the food is paramount. Do not feed old, moldy or rotten hay and straw, and do not put such straw on the bedding. Grind vegetables and root vegetables as small as possible, you do not need to grate, just cut with a knife. Peel corn cobs from leaves and hull grain.
The cattle diet should always be balanced. This means that throughout the day, livestock should receive grass or hay, liquid food, silage, compound feed and premixes. Therefore, you need to take a responsible attitude to the preparation and preservation of feed, reject spoiled products already at the stage of preparation, and sort them out during storage. Drink the required amount of water, especially in winter when animals are fed with dry food.
Everyday exercise is a must for cows. When they move, a natural gentle massage of the digestive organs occurs, which protects the livestock from digestive problems.
Stopping the digestive processes in cows can happen for many reasons, often the owner himself is to blame for the violation. By characteristic signs, you can establish such a condition at home. In mild cases, you can also help the animal at home. It is important here to provide help on time. In advanced cases, the cow may die without treatment.
