Vet on Call: Nails are great fixers on the farm, but beware they top list of animal killers

Nyeri governor Samuel Wamathai inspects value addition machines donated by International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) at Slopes Dairy Cooperative Society in Nyeri. In dairy farming, especially zero-grazing, strive to ensure that nails and wires do not come in contact with livestock feed as this may prove fatal to the animal. PHOTO | JOSEPH KANYI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Livestock "hardware disease” is medically called Traumatic Reticuloperitonitis and Pericarditis (TRP).
  • Hardware disease occurs when cattle, sheep or goats swallow metallic objects that find their way into the animals’ feed.
  • The stomach normally moves one to three times per minute with a lot of force. This force is the one that sometimes pushes sharp metallic objects in the reticulum against the stomach wall and causes them to penetrate into the abdominal cavity.
  • Depending on the direction of motion of the object, it may end up piercing the heart, the diaphragm or the liver or just float in the abdominal cavity.

When I arrived at Gitau’s farm in Juja about a month ago, the sick cow I had been called to attend to reminded me of my days as a herd’s boy.

I grew up on a smallholder dairy farm where my parents kept sheep, goats and cattle.

They later embraced “zero-grazing”, which was touted by Ministry of Agriculture as a more productive method of livestock.

Everyone then struggled to join the club of the zero-grazers and barbed wire fence farmers.

However, we noticed some of our animals would get a strange disease where a cow would suddenly stop producing milk, show pains in the chest and then finally die despite attempts at treatment.

One of my favourite cows in our herd developed the strange illness. I went to milk in the morning and found the cow standing with its head lowered. Its back was arched and she tended to avoid putting weight on all the four legs.

Moreover, she was grunting and resisted moving when I attempted to get her into the milking parlour. I also noticed the elbows were turned outward.

That morning the cow produced three litres of milk instead of the usual ten and not a drop in the evening. It died two days later.

I learnt years later at university that the cow had died of what is commonly called “hardware disease”. Medically, it is called Traumatic Reticuloperitonitis and Pericarditis (TRP).

You see, nails and wires are great fixers in construction of livestock structures and fencing.

However, when they find their way into animal feeds, they cause severe damage in the internal organs and are top killers of cattle.

Gitau narrated that his cow, Jane, had started with infection of the udder and had produced beer-coloured, blood tinged fluid from the teats.

A local animal health service provider treated Jane with many injections and drugs infused into the udder through the teats for seven days.

TO RELIEVE THE ANIMAL FROM SUFFERING

The cow recovered and started producing normal milk, about one third of her output before the illness. On the third day after the last dose of treatment, Jane stopped producing milk completely, was grunting and walked very cautiously.

Further treatment had not improved the situation. “Could she have been poisoned by all those medicines that were given?” Gitau wondered.

I examined Jane thoroughly before answering Gitau. The cow was in great pain and tried very hard to lift as much weight as possible off the body by bending both the carpals and the hocks – those joints in the hind legs below the udder.

The cow had a fever of 40.8 degrees centigrade and the rumen was barely moving and the heart sounds felt weak and distant. The udder was shrunken and dry.

“Mr Gitau, I’m sorry Jane is in a very bad state. She is having an object that has punctured the stomach through to the heart. I’m afraid there is no treatment that can make her recover,” I said after I completed the examination.

I told Gitau the disease had nothing to do with the mastitis or other treatment given earlier. I further told him I would have to euthanise the cow to save her from further suffering.

Euthanasia, also referred to as “mercy killing”, is where the animal is humanely killed to relieve suffering from a condition that is painful and not treatable.

I injected the cow with the euthanising agent through the jugular vein and she peacefully went to sleep – for ever.

Since Jane was already isolated from the other animals, I carried out post-mortem on her body inside the isolation pen.

The heart was connected to the reticulum, which is one of the four stomachs of a cow, by newly formed rope-like tissue.

I dissected the new tissue and retrieved a wire piece with the thickness of a coat hunger.

Gitau and his workers, who were helping me to keep the carcass in the post-mortem position, sighed with relief when I extracted the wire.

EFFECTS OF HARDWARE DISEASE

Hardware disease occurs when cattle, sheep or goats swallow metallic objects that find their way into the animals’ feed.

Ruminants are not able to discriminate the various components of feeds and spit the unpalatable ones. They just swallow everything.

Nails and wires settle in the reticulum, which is the lowest components of the animal’s compound stomach.

The stomach normally moves one to three times per minute with a lot of force. This force is the one that sometimes pushes sharp metallic objects in the reticulum against the stomach wall and causes them to penetrate into the abdominal cavity.

Depending on the direction of motion of the object, it may end up piercing the heart, the diaphragm or the liver or just float in the abdominal cavity.

The body responds to the puncture by producing a lot of new tissue made mainly of a component called fibrin to wrap up the offending object and contain the bacteria and contamination from the stomach. In many cases, the body’s immunity and treatment are overwhelmed by the massive infection or tissue damage and the animal eventually dies.

In some situations, the body may be able to isolate the offending object and the contamination and recover. In such cases, the animal will look like it has some extra tissues in the abdominal organs when slaughtered.

Hay should be baled with sisal ropes and fodder presented to the animals in bulk should be sorted well to remove any metallic objects, mistakenly included during harvesting.

Furthermore, wires and nails should not be dropped in grazing areas and one should avoid using wires in cowsheds. Firmly hammer all loose nails.

Highly valuable cattle may be fed with rumen magnets that settle in the reticulum and capture nails and wires that the animals may swallow.

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The clinic

Sophia Mbugua: Can a pig die of indigestion?

Indigestion normally leads to discomfort, not death. For pigs, indigestion would point to an infection of the gut mainly the intestines.

Take the carcass to Kabete Vet Lab for diagnosis. I would be interested in knowing their diagnosis.