Good-Bye Lilly

Good-Bye Lilly

February 24, 2010, 4:09 pm
Filed under: Cows | Tags: dairy cow, Jersey cow, Johne's disease, Lilly

Lilly the day after we got her

We had to put Lilly down a little over a week ago.  I have been too sad to blog about it.  Now I think I might feel better if I tell her  story.  She went down early Sunday morning during a VERY cold snap.   I knew from when she had gone down before that we had 24 hours to get her up.  So we tried with no luck and decided to just set her up with food and water nearby and try again when we got home from church.  We couldn’t get her up that evening either and decided we would call the vet in the morning if she wasn’t up by herself.  She must have tried about a dozen times, each time too weak to make it all the way.

Lilly after milking a week before she died

The vet came out and told us she needed to be euthanized.  Right up to the end she hadn’t seemed that sick.  She was alert, eating and drinking and so we continued to hope.  It took Jon and I both a couple of hours to come to grips with what we needed to do.  The doctor took blood and stool samples to run three different tests.   After he left we called another farmer to make sure we knew how to put her down so that she wouldn’t suffer.  We talked about who should shoot her, both of us trying to protect the other from the inevitable psychic trauma of putting down a pet.  Jon did the deed, and well I might add.  She stopped breathing in a couple of seconds.  He said there was hardly any mess.

This morning I got a call from the vet.  She died from Johne’s disease.  It’s official name is Mycobacterium paratuberculosis.  It infects the intestines and the animal catches it as a baby.  It is latent until the animal is 2 or 3 years old.  Eventually they develop the symptoms Lilly had:  diarrhea, healthy appetite, no fever but wasting.  It does not respond to antibiotics and is always fatal. 😦

So now we know.  There was nothing I could have done that would have saved her and I suppose I am somewhat relieved that it wasn’t some gross failure of mine that caused her death.  I thought this news would make me feel better but actually I feel like a scab was torn off and I find I am quite depressed.  I have great admiration for the tough old farmers who undoubtedly took things like this in stride.  I, on the other hand, am a city girl and need time to learn to take these things in stride.  I wonder if I have enough years left.

Coming away after a good, long drink at the trough a week before she died

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