One of the reasons for the death of cattle is poisoning. If a cow is poisoned, you need to act quickly – poisons and toxins, once in the stomach, are absorbed into the bloodstream and can lead to the death of the animal. This article will discuss the causes of poisoning, methods of emergency care for various types of intoxication and preventive measures.
cow poisoning
Poisoning reasons
Cows are not very picky in their choice of food, so they often get poisoned. What can poison a cow:
- Poisonous grass, such as alfalfa, lupine, hemlock, ferns or sudanese, acorns.
- Poisonous mushrooms.
- Potatoes that lay in the sun. Such root crops accumulate a toxic substance – solanine, which causes severe poisoning in cattle.
- Beets (cows are forbidden to give a lot of these vegetables at a time).
- Chemical compounds, pesticides – copper salts, mercury, arsenic, nitrates, pesticides.
- Salt – if a cow eats a large amount of salt, she gets poisoned.
- Mold – the animal eats hay of poor quality, affected by a fungus, which causes severe intoxication of the body.
The causes of poisoning include the following factors:
- Lack of feed quality control.
- Grazing animals in fields and pastures where fertilizers are applied.
- Careless treatment of animals.
Timely diagnosis of poisoning is very important. If poisons enter the body of an animal, a lethal outcome often occurs. In order to help the cow in time, you need to know what symptoms occur when poisoning with various substances.
fatal cow poisoning
Symptoms
Poisoning in cows is quite pronounced. Consider its symptoms in detail:
- Bloating.
- Diarrhea (feces change color, mucus, blood, foamy inclusions are found in it).
- Vomiting.
- Depressed state, the animal often lies, stretching out its limbs.
- The gait is wobbly.
- Respiration is frequent, heart rate is accelerated.
- Profuse salivation.
- The pupils are constricted or dilated.
- The mucous membrane of the oral cavity is cyanotic (with arsenic poisoning) or red with ulcers (if mercury has entered the body).
Important! When poisoned with some poisons, the animal is overly excited, convulsions may begin.
Observing such symptoms, you need to act immediately, because the poison that has entered the stomach continues to be absorbed into the blood, thereby aggravating the condition of the cow. How to help a cow?
Emergency Assistance
Treatment of poisoning should be carried out by an experienced veterinarian. In the event that chemicals enter the body of a cow, a scar puncture is sometimes used as an emergency measure, as well as various antidotes, substances that neutralize the effects of poisons and toxins in the body. Consider how emergency therapy is carried out in different situations.
Acetic acid
- If the cow has eaten poisonous grass, acetic acid diluted with water is used as an antidote. The solution should have a concentration of 0,5%. No more than 2 liters of the product is injected into the stomach of the cow, due to which poisons from plants are not able to be absorbed into the blood. In parallel, washing with a solution of potassium permanganate at a concentration of 0,1% is applied. Glucose is administered intravenously, as well as a solution of urotropin (10%).
- In case of mercury poisoning, Strizhevsky’s antidote is used. After neutralizing the poison, the animal is given milk or mucous decoctions to create an enveloping film in the stomach.
- In case of poisoning with nitrates, methylene blue is used, after which the stomach is washed through a tube.
- If copper salts have become the cause of intoxication, the stomach is washed with water with the addition of charcoal. Along with this, a glucose solution is administered intravenously.
- If the cow ate arsenic along with the feed, the stomach is washed with a solution of burnt magnesia at a concentration of 1%. After the cleansing procedure, the cow is given oily emulsions or milk.
- In case of beet poisoning, it is necessary to rinse the stomach abundantly with a solution of potassium permanganate, make a subcutaneous injection of insulin to lower the blood sugar level, and inject a solution of sodium chloride (5%) into a vein.
In case of severe depression of the nervous system, injections with caffeine are used. If the animal is overly agitated, chloral hydrate is given intravenously.
Attention! It is unacceptable to treat a cow with severe poisoning without experience in veterinary medicine. Incorrectly selected antidote or injection solution can be fatal.
After emergency treatment, the veterinarian will give detailed instructions on further treatment.
Treatment
Further actions regarding the treatment of cows include providing her with complete rest. In the first two days after poisoning, the animal is not fed, but only offered to drink.. In parallel, they continue to give sorbents that will help remove the remnants of toxic substances from the body.
In the first 2 days, the animal only waters
When the state of health stabilizes, it is allowed to introduce various talkers into the diet – flour, oatmeal. As appetite appears, the animal is gradually transferred to the usual diet.
Prevention
To avoid poisoning in cattle, farmers need to carefully monitor the quality of the feed. It is important to store hay properly to prevent mold from growing in it. Potatoes intended for animal feed must be stored in a dark place, otherwise the toxin solanine will accumulate in the tubers.
Cows should not be released to pastures that have recently been treated with fertilizers or other chemicals. It is forbidden to wash containers in which toxic substances were stored in water bodies where animals drink. To avoid poisoning cows with beets, it is unacceptable to feed them more than 10-12 kilograms of root crops per day. Careful control of feed quality will help to avoid cattle poisoning.
Poisoning is a common cause of death of cattle in farms. Its danger lies in the fact that the condition of the animal is rapidly deteriorating – dehydration, general depression, convulsions, paralysis, and then death. If you find the first symptoms of poisoning in a cow, immediately contact the veterinary service. To prevent such situations, carefully monitor the quality of the feed and store it away from chemicals.
