Not for the easily-queasy!! (Cow Abscess)

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dier930

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I saw this posted on a friend of a friend's facebook. Apparently it's going viral.

Warning: This could make some people seriously nauseated... but those who want to be rural vets should watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yltIMS4Zc38feature=topvideos_animals

I'm not very experienced with cows. Is this a normal occurrence??
I completely understand that they had to lance the abscess, but how often do abscesses get to this size? Were the dairy owners neglectful or...? There are quite a few videos of cow abscess drains on youtube, so I'm not sure how "normal" this is.

And don't worry, there is another video of an update on that cow a month later and she looks completely normal.
 
Wow! I've never seen anything like that before! I like how the farmer comments on the stink, that's when you know it must be terrible.

The dairy cows are usually glanced at when they come in for milking, so I am surprised at the size of the abscess. I know that would take a while to develop in horses, so I assume it progressed over at least a week or two.
 
I'm not sure exactly how long it would take to get to that size, but it's huge! That just seems like an incredible amount of fluid to pour out...and keep pouring out.

It reminds me of a guttural pouch infection in a horse video that someone from our class put on youtube. (We had a lecture on guttural pouch disease today.)
 
NARSTY! that was *amazing*.

Best part: 3:05- guy cleans knife on cow. lol Classy!

Anyways, to the OP. I'm not a huge cow person, but basically from the video, I don't think this situation is neglectful at all. In fact, far from it because they did lance the abscess in the end.

In large animal medicine, more specifically with livestock, you will see a lot of "ailments", like tumors, abscesses, lameness, etc that you would see in your dog, but the difference is you'd bring your dog to the vet ASAP or make an appointment.

In livestock, I think its often more economical for owners to fix minor ailments themselves if they can, or wait until the vet comes out for some other purpose rather then having them come out for one cow, or just leave them be if its not that hampering on the cow's every day life.

For example, the first time I helped out at a cattle farm a handful of them had eye tumors (which is common in herefords) or lameness. These cattle were automatically singled out and to be sold the next day, while the rest were preg-tested and to be sent to a new owner. So in this case, the owner didn't bother to get the lameness or eyes checked simply because in his words they "got to be productive". Also, these were beef cattle, so they're pretty much left out to pasture 24/7 and are moved periodically- so its hard to keep track of all 700 of them!

Having said that, the industry is a lot different then small animal medicine (as I'm sure you would have guessed) but regardless, they were still treated with compassion, and the owner could tell them all apart, and could pick out the smallest problems.

So overall, I think this video was amazing, and no I don't think this was neglectful at all. 🙂
 
This is strange. The cow appeared to be dry, so she probably wasn't as intensely managed as a lactating cow, which allowed the abscess to go unnoticed?
 
"That's a helluva zit, huh?"

Had that been drained before? or why was there already a mark right where he cut it?
 
I didn't think it was that bad. In my experience, the thick, tar-like drainage is the worst... I worked with a few techs who loved to express abscesses (don't ask me why), and the suspense/build-up before it released just adds to the gross factor
 
vetmed2014 said:
...and that explains why it was done so sterilely! Great methods!.....NOT
Click to expand...

Shrug. I would have done the same - just lance it, stick a drain in, and give her a dose of antibiotics (and if she's in milk, take her off the line depending on the withdrawl time, of course). Usually, just that is more than enough. Trying to keep anything sterile in the lounge area of a dairy facility is a joke most of the time and not worth the effort, unless we're talking abdominal surgery. She'd contaminate it the very next minute she lay down or brushed up against another cow. And if you bandaged it, how are you going to tell the producer of, say, a 1000 cow dairy that he has to do bandage changes on this cow twice a day? Plus, she'll just roll in the mud anyway. Not likely to happen. Sterile takes on a whole other meaning in food animal medicine, haha...
 
lostbunny said:
NARSTY! that was *amazing*.

Best part: 3:05- guy cleans knife on cow. lol Classy!

Anyways, to the OP. I'm not a huge cow person, but basically from the video, I don't think this situation is neglectful at all. In fact, far from it because they did lance the abscess in the end.

In large animal medicine, more specifically with livestock, you will see a lot of "ailments", like tumors, abscesses, lameness, etc that you would see in your dog, but the difference is you'd bring your dog to the vet ASAP or make an appointment.

In livestock, I think its often more economical for owners to fix minor ailments themselves if they can, or wait until the vet comes out for some other purpose rather then having them come out for one cow, or just leave them be if its not that hampering on the cow's every day life.

For example, the first time I helped out at a cattle farm a handful of them had eye tumors (which is common in herefords) or lameness. These cattle were automatically singled out and to be sold the next day, while the rest were preg-tested and to be sent to a new owner. So in this case, the owner didn't bother to get the lameness or eyes checked simply because in his words they "got to be productive". Also, these were beef cattle, so they're pretty much left out to pasture 24/7 and are moved periodically- so its hard to keep track of all 700 of them!

Having said that, the industry is a lot different then small animal medicine (as I'm sure you would have guessed) but regardless, they were still treated with compassion, and the owner could tell them all apart, and could pick out the smallest problems.

So overall, I think this video was amazing, and no I don't think this was neglectful at all. 🙂
Click to expand...

Right, I understand the LA vs SA difference, productivity, etc etc. But the sheer SIZE of the abscess... Seems like no one looked at her for weeks. And this is a dairy cow, not a beef cow, so I would think she would be brought in for milking, etc. Then again, if it progressed quickly then maybe there was no sooner opportunity for lancing. I don't think the lancing itself is neglectful/wrong, just the opposite. Bet she felt a lot better after that.

To be clear, I am not looking at this from a "small animal" perspective. I just find it odd that it wasn't lanced sooner. But I'm not sure, maybe this is normal, so that's why I ask. So what I meant was, is an abscess of this size a completely normal thing? or is this an extraordinary case? or semi-unusual case? Were the dairy farmers a bit unobservant or did this occur in only a few days?

I don't think she was "dry" (although I admit I don't really know what that means) because the update video says:
The really good news: She went up 25 lbs of milk, she was declared pregnant 12 days after, and most importantly she didn't need any follow up care. She drained and healed on her own without having to be treated with antibiotics. She will turn 5 years old the end of October.
​
 
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TomTheK9Fixr said:
I worked with a few techs who loved to express abscesses (don't ask me why), and the suspense/build-up before it released just adds to the gross factor
Click to expand...

because abscesses are AMAZING! I was listening to the radio last night and they were having people call in because they were discussing that they hate (the radio people were guys) when their girlfriends pop their back zits and blackheads. So people were calling in empathizing with the guys, or girls explaining why its so fulfilling to do this.

Are you a guy? and were the techs girls? lol.
 
It also may be that she was acting totally normally, and they just thought it was a tumor. Tumors that do not impact an animal's health or production are generally ignored.

And then, when her milk started to go down, they got concerned and decided to give it a closer look and maybe call someone in. I've seen that happen as well.
 
dier930 said:
To be clear, I am not looking at this from a "small animal" perspective. I just find it odd that it wasn't lanced sooner. But I'm not sure, maybe it's normal, so that's why I ask. So what I meant was, is this a completely normal thing? or is this an extraordinary case?

[/INDENT]
Click to expand...

Maybe it wasn't that bad but grew to a massive size in a short amount of time. Or maybe they were waiting for the camera battery to charge before they lanced it 😉

To be honest too- all your questions are totally legit- but the only one who can really answer them are the guys in the video!
 
lostbunny said:
because abscesses are AMAZING! I was listening to the radio last night and they were having people call in because they were discussing that they hate (the radio people were guys) when their girlfriends pop their back zits and blackheads. So people were calling in empathizing with the guys, or girls explaining why its so fulfilling to do this.

Are you a guy? and were the techs girls? lol.
Click to expand...

Yes, and yes... That's just god awful disgusting! The thought of a girl doing that, and getting satisfaction is quite possibly more disgusting than anything I have seen in my 8 years in ER... Yack
 
TomTheK9Fixr said:
Yes, and yes... That's just god awful disgusting! The thought of a girl doing that, and getting satisfaction is quite possibly more disgusting than anything I have seen in my 8 years in ER... Yack
Click to expand...

LMAO!! The radio show was quite entertaining, though I can't say I enjoy getting another person's puss on me. I do enjoy a good abscess lance though, must admit. I guess its a girl thing.
 
in production animal it all comes down to the bottom line at one point in the video you can hear the woman in the back say i noticed it starting a couple weeks ago. if you didnt make her drop in milk at that time the farmer doesn't necessarily think that much off it. in terms of the mark at the lance site prior to lancing it could have been the source of the original infection, a bed sore for instance. i dont think this is any sort of neglect she is a thousand pound animal whose sole purpose is to produce milk. while she is loved dearly she isnt going to be treated the same as fido, and for that matter dogs on farms are treated in a similar fashion, rarely will you see a farm dog come in for a minor lump like a sebaceous cyst or skin tag. it is a different life style and way of thinking
 
dier930 said:
Right, I understand the LA vs SA difference, productivity, etc etc. But the sheer SIZE of the abscess... Seems like no one looked at her for weeks. And this is a dairy cow, not a beef cow, so I would think she would be brought in for milking, etc. Then again, if it progressed quickly then maybe there was no sooner opportunity for lancing. I don't think the lancing itself is neglectful/wrong, just the opposite. Bet she felt a lot better after that.

To be clear, I am not looking at this from a "small animal" perspective. I just find it odd that it wasn't lanced sooner. But I'm not sure, maybe this is normal, so that's why I ask. So what I meant was, is an abscess of this size a completely normal thing? or is this an extraordinary case? or semi-unusual case? Were the dairy farmers a bit unobservant or did this occur in only a few days?

I don't think she was "dry" (although I admit I don't really know what that means) because the update video says:
The really good news: She went up 25 lbs of milk, she was declared pregnant 12 days after, and most importantly she didn't need any follow up care. She drained and healed on her own without having to be treated with antibiotics. She will turn 5 years old the end of October.
​
Click to expand...


As tempting and easy as it is to want to cite neglect as a cause for a really bad case of something, it really isn't always that way. Like WTF 🙂)) said it could have very probably have been looked at as a tumor. Given that many producers want to spend as little as possible on healthcare if they can help it, as long as the cow was producing they probably shrugged it off. The fact that she was dry- meaning she was not producing milk, or producing abnormally low amounts, signals a definite health problem to the farmer, likely related to mastitis, and would then be dealth with, and the subsequent abscess would be uncovered. Not to mention, animals, especially ruminants have an extraordinary ability to be stoic in times of pain, so this cow may not have acted out of the ordinary at all or given any reason for the farmer to be concerned. Also, it's a large animal, so the size of the abscess may be relative to the size of the animal. Although I can't speak for sure about what a normal large animal abscess would look like, but there are many times where I am amazed at just the size difference of organs in large animals, and I have to remember to think about what is normal relative to their size.
 
When I was working with the e-vet techs, abscesses were absolutely my favorite thing to treat. Part of it was the simple concept of "we can fix it! in 15 minutes! (with a drain and follow-up antibiotics)." Much better news than we could give for most of our patients. And yes, part of it was the simple satisfaction of seeing it pop. It's a girl thing. :laugh:

I've actually been having a really crappy day, and that video just made it a whole lot better. It's weirdly cathartic.
 
rubygirl said:
and for that matter dogs on farms are treated in a similar fashion, rarely will you see a farm dog come in for a minor lump like a sebaceous cyst or skin tag. it is a different life style and way of thinking
Click to expand...

I agree with everything you said, but its funny to see the difference even in such close proximity. By this I mean, the neighbor has tons of land and has got beef cattle along with his working dogs. Those dogs, sweet, but super fit and more interested in mustering cattle then coming over for a pat. Anyways, these guys live outside in their little runs, but then you walk in the door of the house and this fat little jack russel comes over and rolls onto her back furiously wagging her little stump of a tail. <3
 
libster06 said:
Not to mention, animals, especially ruminants have an extraordinary ability to be stoic in times of pain, so this cow may not have acted out of the ordinary at all or given any reason for the farmer to be concerned.
Click to expand...

Very true. I have seen cases of massive, AWFUL hardware disease where the entire pericardium and epicardium are completely disgusting and necrotic, and according to the producer the cow only started to finally go off feed last week. My guess is (and yeah, I don't know the specifics) that they just figured it was a tumor or something, and the cow was acting fine, so whatever. I have seen perfectly fine Angus cows, for example, running around with massive melanomas. They still eat, they still have good calves etc - so why bother? It is not until (or even if) the animal starts to actually be sick or have a decline in production that the worry sets in.

Plus, when you have a couple hundred of thousand animals, you literally *can't* look at them all closely - that would require far more hired help than most dairies or beef operations can perform. Even at milking time, it is still hordes of two dozen cows (or more) pushing through the runs, all crowded up, and all you're basically looking at is the udder and machines. It is not until you go over the spreadsheets that you realize an animal may be sick.

I would consider it neglect if they *didn't* lance it and just let her go.
 
WhtsThFrequency said:
Plus, when you have a couple hundred of thousand animals, you literally *can't* look at them all closely - that would require far more hired help than most dairies or beef operations can perform. Even at milking time, it is still hordes of two dozen cows (or more) pushing through the runs, all crowded up, and all you're basically looking at is the udder and machines. It is not until you go over the spreadsheets that you realize an animal may be sick.
Click to expand...

I was going to make that point also. It's noticeable when the animal is all by itself and the focus is on the affected area, but in a large group of cattle it could really blend in. The only seemingly feasible way to tell is to look at their milk production.. I've so had to adjust my mentality since I have been in vet school to not jump to the neglect conclusion before thinking of other possibilities! It can cloud your vision so much from the real problem and solutions.
 
vetmed2014 said:
...and that explains why it was done so sterilely! Great methods!.....NOT
Click to expand...

You should see how they castrate horses lol.

Anyways, great video!! I wonder just how much volume of fluid came out of there? Very impressive. I have a confession, I like expressing abscesses.
 
TomTheK9Fixr said:
... I worked with a few techs who loved to express abscesses (don't ask me why), and the suspense/build-up before it released just adds to the gross factor
Click to expand...

Maybe it is just because you KNOW it must feel SO much better immediately after? I always feel like that 🙂
 
libster06 said:
I have that same fulfillment cleaning out nasty ears.
Click to expand...

I am also into ears and abcesses. My cat gets his ears cleaned once a week whether he likes it or not... and he was smart enough to just suck it up and like it. 😉
 
I saw one just like this back when I was shadowing an LA vet, only it was on a huge angus bull. In that case I understood how it had gotten so large without notice; going anywhere near this animal was not something anyone wanted to do without an excellent reason :laugh:
 
dier930 said:
Right, I understand the LA vs SA difference, productivity, etc etc. But the sheer SIZE of the abscess... Seems like no one looked at her for weeks. And this is a dairy cow, not a beef cow, so I would think she would be brought in for milking, etc. Then again, if it progressed quickly then maybe there was no sooner opportunity for lancing. I don't think the lancing itself is neglectful/wrong, just the opposite. Bet she felt a lot better after that.

To be clear, I am not looking at this from a "small animal" perspective. I just find it odd that it wasn't lanced sooner. But I'm not sure, maybe this is normal, so that's why I ask. So what I meant was, is an abscess of this size a completely normal thing? or is this an extraordinary case? or semi-unusual case? Were the dairy farmers a bit unobservant or did this occur in only a few days?
Click to expand...

Cows have an amazing ability to wall off infections and create abscesses (all animals can, but cows are extraordinary at it). Before I saw the video, I expected the abscess would have been even bigger. I would agree with WhtsThFrequency, the abscess probably got missed among the hubbub of the every day. And maybe the farmers waited till they had a couple of animals that needed to see the vet so they could justify the callout fee. Obviously, the situation is suboptimal, but things like this happen.

Most people in small animal medicine have seen something similar -- an animal comes in with a glaringly obvious abnormality (like a softball-sized testicle or a golfball-sized tumor on their forehead) that the owners have been living with for some time, and you know the animal should have been seen weeks or months ago. Such is life. As a vet, you just do the best you can for the animal in front of you. You'll eat yourselves alive with anger if you focus too much on the woulda, coulda, shoulda's.
 
squirrelsrule said:
It says the video is no longer available 🙁
Click to expand...

I know I missed seeing the video.... although from the descriptions from everyone else I think I have seen it before or one similar to it. I still want to see the video though, oh well.

Side Note: I just scared the crap out of myself. I hit the shift key five times and my computer made this awful sound and I have my headphones in with the volume turned way up, darn sticky keys option.
 
breenie said:
I am also into ears and abcesses. My cat gets his ears cleaned once a week whether he likes it or not... and he was smart enough to just suck it up and like it. 😉
Click to expand...

My cat, my dog, the clinic cats...if it spends time around me, I'm going to clean it's ears. I also love pulling the ear hair out (I have a poodle) and she doesn't enjoy that. There are upsides to this weird obsession - she's never had an ear infection 😀

Oh and! Pulling out porcupine quills has that same sense of satisfaction.
 
Cows are really great at walling off infection. Depending on the type of parlor (the "ladies" walk in of their own accord and you only see their feet or the person is on the same level as the cow), they might have only noticed it on the way out of the milking bay (since it was so high up on the leg), but her somatic cell count wasn't high and her production was good. Once her production dropped, or they couldn't find a drainage tract, they called in the vet.
 
lareinesoleil said:
Oh and! Pulling out porcupine quills has that same sense of satisfaction.
Click to expand...

I don't find the same with quills- though its very irritating when you're trying to put a cone on a lab that wants to give you kisses and cuddles but his face, chest and legs are all full of quills! Ouch!!! 😛
 
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