Mucca's Big Jaw

This is Mucca

Mucca is Italian for cow.

Last week Keith noticed two areas of swelling on her, one on the right side of her jaw, and the other on the right side of her neck. He asked me to look at it closer and I was baffled. The one on her jaw was small, golf ball size, but very hard.

The one on her neck was larger, softer. Neither felt warm, as an area of infection might, and there were no signs of puncture wounds or cuts. She wasn't having any trouble eating or drinking either. But, we were concerned about parasites and because she is pregnant, due in a couple months,  we made an appointment with our vet.

To save the cost of a farm visit, we loaded up Mucca a couple of days later and drove her 30 miles to the vets office where he was able to see her in the back of our livestock trailer. I may have mentioned it before, but we love our vet! Been using him for over twenty years and he's so good and kind with the animals, and super patient with my nurse fueled questions. and Keith's experienced dairy man inquisitions, "So, should we try this? " or "Do you think it's this?" and "How can we avoid this?"

He tried to aspirate both swollen areas with a needle and syringe but got back nothing more than a bit of serous fluid. Looking at the cells under his microscope he didn't see any bacteria and because she wasn't acting sick, he guestimated it as a couple of hematomas (areas of blood collection) due to an injury of sorts.

We were relived it wasn't serious and that antibiotics weren't needed. We were also relieved that the total bill was just $87 . It's still over our monthly livestock care budget but Jan and Feb expenses in this area were low, so Mucca gets a pass. After we got her home I spent more time watching her and noticed how Alpha Cow Liz can be pushy with Mucca especially at hay feeding time. Both cows have horns and so it's likely Liz gave Mucca a push and hit her right side with her horns. Liz's horns are blunt tipped, which is consistent with the injuries seen on Mucca.

So, we'll keep an eye on her and hopefully the hematomas will absorb back into the bloodstream as they should. We also added another large Rubbermaid feeder in their pen so they each have their own feeder to dine from. Of course, they aren't doing this. First, they eat together out of one feeder then they mosey over the other feeder and eat out that, together.

Cows. If it's not one thing, it's an udder.