02/27/2024
The old cow was 4 days post-calving with a low grade fever, off feed, and reluctant to move. On physical exam, she also had distended jugular veins with pulses, indicating heart failure, and a "washing machine" murmur- caused by fluid around the heart and sounding like your washing machine at work. This was a classic case of hardware disease
Hardware disease, technically known as traumatic reticuloperitonitis, occurs when a cow eats a sharp piece of metal or other object, which travels to the stomach compartment known as the reticulum, and then perforates the wall and stabs into the heart (or it can pierce the lungs, liver, or other organs).
For less severe cases of hardware, we can try to treat them but it is often not successful. For cows already in heart failure from it, the prognosis is hopeless.
This cow was euthanized and an inquisitive producer opened her up to see what that might look like. Note the magnet recovered from the reticulum with a bent nail and various scraps of metal attached to it. The magnet did its job but it didn't catch the small, pointy piece of metal on my hand. And that piece of metal, the size of a paper clip, brought down a 1500 lb cow.
ADD-ON: Since I posted this, I've been told multiple times that it is sad. It is sad. It is absolutely devastating to see this happen. So the obvious question is what else can be done to prevent it.
The source of the hardware can be from building or demolition projects, but often, it is from people's garbage. Roadside garbage like glass bottles and aluminum cans find their way into a cornfield or hayfield and get shredded by the harvesting equipment. I've even heard of an archery hunter's broadhead being lost in a cornfield and later removed from a cow that died this way. And besides the magnets in the cows stomachs, many farms have magnets on their feed mixing equipment to catch any metal. But the sharp objects are not always magnetic. Cows are particularly susceptible because unlike other livestock that use their lips and teeth to eat, cattle use their tongues and they are far less particular about what they grasp and swallow.
So the biggest thing you can do to help these cows out is to get rid of your garbage properly. Farmers don't throw their garbage in your front yard. Don't throw your garbage where they and their cows live, work, and eat.
