Tompkins Corner Chronicles

 Throughout the summer we had several cows die in seemingly unrelated ways. Two died in late July in two separate pastures.  One was 9 years old, and another was 10.  The life span of a cow can be 15 years old.  I've heard of steers getting into their 20s if they were treated like a pet. Though My dad has typically sold them as cull (to slaughter for hamburger) around the age of 11 or 12.  The first of the July deaths we simply found a cow dead in the pasture with no obvious reason.  A week later cow #649 had gotten foot rot, so was lame.  She seemed really weak and immediately pretty irritable. Covered in flies as well.  Pitifully she would get easily into fight mode and try to charge but then her legs would give out and she'd crumple beneath whoever she was charging at.  After getting her sprayed for flies and bringing in a tractor and a lot of patience we got her up into a small pen.  Fed and watered her, gave her an antibiotic shot, ...

 This summer has been revealing to me what effect a small thing can have.  Battling flies is a constant issue for livestock. Just YouTube "dealing with flies on cattle" and you'll see the struggle in their faces. Cows are large animals and yet when swarmed by hundreds of them it has a pretty detrimental affect.   What I have seen is it stresses the cows out, they then clump together and often go down into muddy low areas to try to get away from the flies.  The two effects we have seen this summer is Pink Eye for one. where the eye begins to go pink and then white, resulting in blindness.  It can be treated if caught and we've had a couple have a slight recovery of vision, but it can result in having to get rid of the animal.  The main reason is they are more dangerous to work with, especially a bull.  Here is an example of pink eye. The other effect of the flies is not directly from the fly, but instead from standing in the mud.  And that is ...