A Yorkshire Vet Through the Seasons

by Julian Norton

  It was always a tough day’s work, starting early and finishing pretty much when the light disappeared. We would work constantly without a break even for coffee, let alone lunch. To stop would mean we would not be finished before dark, so I would always start the day of Alex’s herd’s pregnancy testing with a big breakfast and an extra pair of socks to keep out the cold.

  The farm is lovely and traditional. The buildings are all made of solid blocks of Yorkshire stone cut out of the nearby hills. There are extensive views to the moors beyond – when there is chance to see them, that is. There were no views to be had today. The angry cows were corralled in batches of about forty or fifty into a fold yard and then ushered down a corridor into a ‘race’ which was the width of just one cow, so that the animals couldn’t turn around. The race led to a sliding wooden door, which in turn led to a metal cattle crush, where I did my thing – outside. It was conveniently positioned in the coldest part of the farm, in one of the draughtiest parts of North Yorkshire. The cold was made worse by the wind, which was blowing straight in from the north. The crush itself was freezing too, having been outside all night in sub-zero temperatures. There was no chance of the icy metal warming up in the sunshine either, since dark grey clouds hung menacingly around us.

  As well as pregnancy testing each cow, which was the reason for my visit, I was also in charge of operating the crush to capture each one and keep her still, so she was safe to handle. There was a rhythm to the process – front door closed, bar in behind to stop the cow backing out, back door closed and locked, neck yoke closed, back door opened, bar removed, arm inserted into the cow’s rectum to check for a calf. The whole process was then repeated in reverse after Alex had checked the ear tags. Each cow needed two and any missing ones, lost on the moorland over the summer, were replaced. The cow’s bushy tail was clipped of extra hair, she was given her dose of wormer and then released. Onto the next …

  The important part of my job – the pregnancy testing – was lovely and warm. My arm was inserted into a temperature of exactly 101.5°F, which is the body temperature of a healthy cow, and it was much warmer than the outside temperature! So for thirty seconds or so of every five minutes, I would have a toasty warm right arm from fingers to shoulder. For the rest of the time my hands were in contact with either the cold air or the freezing metal of the cattle crush, which sapped all the warmth from my body.

  But it was possibly my feet that were the coldest. I was moving around, but not much, and the concrete of the yard was icy. While the other tasks were being done with each cow, I was mainly standing still and the thin soles of my Wellington boots offered little barrier to the rising chill. That second pair of socks was a necessity.

  By midday, however, we were progressing quite well and all serious problems had, so far, been avoided. Our assessment of how the day was going was judged not just by the percentage of cows pregnant, but also by the number of escapees and breakouts, and the number and extent of injuries to the assembled staff (kicks to the vet being the main one). Today, all was good.

  Pregnancy testing provides crucial information for a farmer. The cows have been outside all summer, eating grass and allowing their spring-born calves to suckle and grow big and strong. A bull or two, or more, is introduced in mid-summer so the cows become pregnant ready to have another calf the following spring. Farming like this is not economically viable if each cow doesn’t get close to producing one calf per year. Summer grazing is cheap if the farmer owns the land, but not if they have to rent the field. Winter food, grass silage, minerals and creep feed for the calves are all substantial costs that need to be covered, and for a beef suckler farmer like Alex, the sale of his calves is his only source of income.

  If the cow is not pregnant, it is critical to find this out before winter. It is folly to feed an ‘empty’ cow all through the long winter months if she is not going to produce a baby in the spring. So, aside from this being a long, hard day for me, it is always a very important day for Alex and it can be stressful. Each time I shake my head to indicate the cow is ‘empty’, there is a noticeable drop in the mood. Conversely, when I cheerfully confirm that a cow is ‘in calf’, as I feel a foetus bobbing around inside the cow’s uterus, the mood always lifts. I remember one day, when I was a student, following a veterinary surgeon who was pregnancy testing a group of about thirty cows. Not a single one was pregnant, and the farmer was just about in tears by the time we left the farm. It is not the fault of the vet, but as the harbingers of bad news, we always feel rather guilty at having to shake our head again. I dared not imagine what it would be like if that was the outcome today.

  Happily, so far at least, that was not turning out to be the case. The problem that was becoming evident, however, as the day progressed, was the fragility of the wooden sliding door that was stopping cows coming out of the race, before being captured in the crush. The repeated opening and closing, which had to be done rapidly to stop the next animal bursting out, had taken its toll on the wood, which was already weak from its exposure to the elements. The door was becoming a shadow of its former self. Large splintered holes were appearing, one large enough for an impatient cow to stick its nose through.

  Standing behind a cow with my arm inside its rectum, whilst warm, was not the safest place to be. A sudden twist to the left or right, or worse still downwards, could easily result in a debilitating injury to my elbow or shoulder. The deft accuracy of a kick from a cow’s back legs does not need much further explanation, but now the integrity of the wooden door was the only thing stopping the next cow from bursting out and squashing me between it and the cow already in the crush. With my arm where it was, I had no way to escape. Should the wooden door fail under the weight and impatience of a 700-kilogram Simmental cow, I would be another statistic for the air ambulance and its team.

  As the afternoon wore on, the frailty of the door was increasingly preying on my mind. The number of cows in the shed was slowly diminishing and the end of the day was becoming a real prospect, rather than a dim and distant pipe dream but, as the nose-sized hole grew into a hole big enough for a cow’s head, my grounds for optimism receded.

  It was at this point that the sleet started to come down. It had been threatening all day – dark, low cloud and a damp coldness that had risen from my feet as far as my knees and had stubbornly refused to dissipate during the afternoon. When you are working outside, sleet is the worst thing that can fall from the sky. Rain can be warm and snow, although colder in absolute temperature, does not penetrate so deeply. Sleet, however, is both freezing and somehow gets right through to your skin. It was slow at first, but it came down harder and harder, until the yard where we were working became covered in a silvery slush. It didn’t stay silvery for long, as muck from the cows soon gave it a bronze sheen. The ground looked like a very unpalatable Slush Puppie drink.

  Mercifully for everyone, the number of cows on the ‘to do’ side of the crush eventually dropped to single figures. Whilst this usually buoys the spirit, any experienced farmer or veterinary surgeon knows that this is not the time to start thinking of warm cups of tea. The last few cows are last for a very good reason – these are the ones who are best at evading capture. The cows left to test had avoided coercion into the race for the last six hours and they had no intention of going in now without a fight. Often the last ten cows can take as long to deal with as the first thirty, as they have much more space to run around in frustrating circles, and to pick up speed. At least chasing these last few was out of the sleet and it was a good way of getting warm.

  Two cows leapt over the gate to freedom. It is quite something to see a fully grown cow clear a four-foot gate from a standing start.

  ‘Oh, bugger it, let’s leave it at that,’ were Alex’s final words. We didn’t know if they were pregnant, but he didn’t look too bothered. It had been a tough day, and somehow, two escapees out of two hundred didn’t seem too bad. And the door had held out.

  Whilst I washed my wellies from the icy w
ater butt near to where I had parked my car, we went through the numbers – 92 per cent were pregnant, not including the two escapees. This was not a bad result. Secretly, however, everyone was just relieved that the job was finished. We were all unscathed and still smiling. Just.

  Smelly Cat

  New Year’s Eve is always the shortest straw to draw on the Christmas rota. Not only is it the one night of the year when everyone wants to socialize, but it is also the night we receive the most bizarre and unusual calls. This might be because clients, or animals – or both – have enjoyed the festivities just that little bit too much. It might, of course, just be coincidence.

  One New Year’s Eve call has gone down in history at the practice. It happened in the days before we were computerized, when patient records were kept on cards the size of a postcard. The card that recorded the clinical notes for this particular case has been kept for posterity. Without actually seeing it written in black and white, the story is almost impossible to believe. Yet it is entirely true. The vet who was on duty and dealt with the case (and I shall not disclose his identity) has recounted the story many times over the years.

  The phone went early on the evening of 31 December.

  ‘Hello, is that the vet?’

  ‘Yes, what’s the problem?’

  ‘It’s our cat. She’s not very well,’ explained the man on the end of the phone. ‘We’d like you to have a look at her.’

  ‘Okay,’ replied my colleague, who was at home at the time. ‘I can be at the practice in about ten minutes.’

  It is always good to have a little bit of information, to be forewarned about what might be in store, so another tentative question followed, the answer to the first question not having been so illuminating.

  ‘What has happened?’

  ‘Well. We were bathing her in the sink – she was smelly, you see – and now she’s not very well,’ came the reply, which was still not that helpful.

  ‘Okay, well I’ll see you at the practice. If I’m not there immediately, just wait in the car and I’ll be with you shortly.’

  The unfortunate veterinary surgeon still didn’t really know what the problem was, other than that the cat had been in the sink. He expected it to be wet.

  When he arrived at the practice, the owners of the cat were already there, waiting in their car as instructed, clutching a large pink towel, swaddling the wet cat. He unlocked the front door and ushered them inside. People kept coming – it seemed it was a large family, and the small consulting room was filled with six quite large family members, who all gathered around the bundle on the table.

  ‘So, tell me again what exactly happened this evening?’

  It was important to know the full history. Animals (obviously) can’t tell us vets the nature of their problem, so getting as much information as possible from owners is an important part of any assessment, even before the examination starts.

  ‘Well, she was starting to smell, you see, so we thought we’d give her a bath. We bathed her in the sink in the kitchen and then …’

  There was a pause accompanied by some snuffling from the youngest member of the group.

  ‘And then she wasn’t very well at all.’

  It was becoming evident that a detailed history was not going to be forthcoming.

  ‘Okay then, why don’t we have a look – can you open up the towel please?’

  The large pink towel was unravelled, to reveal a dead cat. A very dead cat. Rigor mortis had set in and it was completely stiff, with staring eyes and legs that stuck out rigidly.

  The family stared expectantly at the veterinary surgeon for some kind of assessment of the sick tortoiseshell. Although there was clearly no need to listen for a heartbeat with the stethoscope, this seemed to be the only thing to do. After a few moments with the metal end resting on the cat’s chest, the duty vet sadly shook his head.

  ‘I’m sorry. She’s passed away,’ he said, confirming the obvious.

  ‘Oh my God! She’s DEAD?’ was the collective response from all six members of the family. There was much wailing and grief, unsurprisingly as she was clearly a much-loved family pet. What was surprising was that nobody seemed to have had any clue that this might have been the case.

  The family had a moment or two with their cat before wending a tearful way back home. Not a happy way to end the year, but a most unusual one. The most peculiar thought though, was that if they had embarked on the bathing process because the cat was starting to smell, and rigor mortis was well and truly established, how long had the cat actually been dead?

  I don’t think we’ll ever know!

  While You’re Here …

  Jobs like routine pregnancy tests, kennel inspections, calving cows or rescuing swans (or indeed establishing that an animal is dead) are all clearly defined tasks. We know exactly what the visit will entail and approximately how long it will take. Even though there are likely to be plenty of surprises along the way, once we have finished, the end point is clear. When the swan is caught and treated, or when the final cow has been tested, I can say ‘cheerio’, get back to the warmth of my car and go on to the next call. However, there is a certain phrase, usually uttered just as we are heading to the tap to wash off our wellies, which makes the heart sink. The farmer, almost accidentally, drops out the words:

  ‘Ah, while you’re here, Vet’nary, you couldn’t just have a quick look at my …’

  What comes next can be pretty much anything from ‘… mother’s elderly cat’, to ‘… heifer which has been slowly deteriorating from a chronic, obscure and impossible-to-diagnose disease (which happens to be still out in the field and on the other side of the valley)’, or ‘… yearling thoroughbred which I haven’t been able to put a head collar on since I bought him three weeks ago’.

  Whatever the nature of the ‘while you’re here’ job, it is certain to mean that your carefully planned round of morning visits will overrun into lunchtime. It also means that lunchtime will cease to exist and morning visits will merge seamlessly into afternoon surgery. These ‘while you’re here’ jobs are never announced beforehand and never discussed on arrival at the farm. No, this would be far too obvious. Everyone knows that we vets would rather have semi-urgent cases presented to us without warning, ideally at the last minute, just to keep us on our toes. It would never do if life were made too easy.

  The master of the ‘while you’re here’ job was Ray. He was farm manager at my favourite farm, on the edge of the North York Moors, halfway between Thirsk and Stokesley. It was a mixed farm, comprising a beef suckler herd of about one hundred adult cattle and follow-on stock, plus about two thousand sheep. In the early days of my time at Thirsk the farm also kept several hundred pigs. Add to this a heady collection of spaniels, the miscellaneous collies that always coexist with sheep and a few horses or ponies and the only certainty about any visit to this farm was that there would be more to do than you expected. What was uncertain though, was how many extras would be presented and of which species. Every visit would be like a kind of veterinary school final exam, where multiple different cases were paraded in front of me for diagnosis. The farm operated about six different units, which were spread over about three or four miles. Therefore, it was not uncommon to have a ‘while you’re here’ job that wasn’t ‘here’ at all. When Ray called the practice for a visit to see a sick cow, you knew you would be there for the whole morning.

  However, it still came as a surprise when all of the ‘while you’re here’ jobs turned out to be on the same cow. It was late one evening when the call came in to visit the cow that, by strange misfortune, had managed to skewer itself on a big metal spike. This was particularly unlucky, because accidents of this nature usually happen on the most disorganised farms, where equipment is left pointing in all directions and the farmyard looks more like a junkyard. This was not the case here – the yard was impeccably well organised and very tidy. The spike in question was attached to the front of a tractor and used to carry large bales of hay,
straw or silage. When not in use the spikes were left pointing to the ground to avoid injury to cows or people. However, the cow, heavy and heavily in calf, was lying down near the tractor and must have rolled under the spike, and then tried to get up, impaling herself through the right flank, with the spike advancing towards her lungs.

  After some sedative and the injection of some local anaesthetic, it was possible to pull the metal spike carefully out of the cow. Mercifully it had missed the lungs. I spent some time cleaning the area and flushing the lengthy hole that extended deep into her abdomen. Luckily, the spike was clean and sharp and no pieces could have fallen off to become lodged inside the cow. This can, and often does, happen when the offending foreign body is a stick or a piece of wood and the outcome of such injuries is always very serious. At least this wasn’t the case tonight, and once I was happy everything was as clean as it could be, I set about suturing the injury back together. It took a while to repair and, as I got close to the end of the suturing, the cow lay flat on her side and started straining. Her eyes bulged and she began to make great bellowing and mooing noises. She was starting to calve.

  Being a vet on a farm when an animal starts to give birth brings a certain responsibility. Whilst it is always best to allow things to take their natural course, it is folly to leave a calving cow, only to have to return two hours later, because she is having difficulty. So, having cleared away my surgical kit, I brought out the obstetrical lubricant. Lo and behold, when I reached inside to feel for the calf, all I could feel was its tail, and nothing else. This is the classic breech presentation. The calf is pointing backwards but with both back legs tucked forwards, towards the cow’s head. It is impossible for the calf to be delivered naturally in this presentation, so intervention is always required.

  There was nothing for it but to clean the blood from the first operation off my hands, and get an epidural ready. An epidural is essential when some serious rearrangement of the calf is required. It stops the cow from straining and therefore makes it possible to push the calf’s bottom further in, allowing more space to manoeuvre its back legs up and back. It sounds rather grand when we announce that we will perform an epidural but it is actually a simple procedure, whereby about five millilitres of local anaesthetic solution is injected into the spinal cord, at the point where the tail joins the body. It numbs the whole area around the back of the cow, not only stopping her from straining, but also affording some pain relief during and after the delivery.