# Hardware / cattle. Shotgun shells ?



## sandbur (May 6, 2018)

Hey guys I'm dealing with my second cow suffering from what they call Hardware's disease and I think they may be eating empty shotgun shells that are left out in the pasture, anybody have any experience with this?


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

Doesn’t seem possible that a spent shotgun shell would cause a problem. Usually something sharp, baling wire, nail, jagged metal. I would think a shell would float on thru the stomachs. Easy enough to find out, if the cow dies, have her posted. The culprit should be in the heart sac.


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## Ray 54 (Aug 2, 2014)

I am with haybaler ,thinking something sharp had poke the insides. Cause 40 years ago some dairies that chopped the feed would put a magnet about as big as a 20 gauge shot shell in the cows. I don't know which compartment of the cow it settled in, but the ideas was to catch little bits of wire before they poked in someplace. I don't know if the little bits rusted away or what,but up on slaughter the magnet was retrieved to be used again.


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## farmersamm (Nov 2, 2017)

I used to use a vet that, if he didn't know what was wrong, would always settle on hardware disease.. Why I don't bother with vets in well over a decade. Had one on-farm visit a few years back, which was also inconclusive, but it made K'kins happy.

Personally, I'd suspect your hay, not your pasture. Lotta stuff winds up in hay, and they just take it in with a mouthful.


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

Ditto with the others that state that hardware disease in cattle was caused from cows ingested ""sharp objects"" such as pieces of metal including baling wire that put holes in their digestive tracks. I've heard all my life that shotgun shells hulls were not good for cattle & should be picked up by hunters


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## sandbur (May 6, 2018)

Well if it isn't the shotgun shells out there I really don't have a lot of metal objects as far as wire and what not in my pasture that I know of but there is some partial woods with lots of branches and sticks. does it have to be a metal object for Hardware's or do you think they might be digestion some wood sticks ect.


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## farmersamm (Nov 2, 2017)

Wish I'd taken a picture Sunday. I'm feeding bales that have blackberry stems in them. Lots of stickers.

We fed Sunday afternoon, and I had to move a couple of feeders to pull them off the pile of braches/stems/garbage in the bottom. Not one bit of hay left, but a very neat pile of branches. They will pick around this kind of stuff, and definitely won't take it in when grazing.

Has the vet actually done a necropsy to determine what killed the cows? (Usually a waste of money, and leaves you a mess to clean up, but ya never know)

It's small bits of metal in hay that will be ingested. Like I said, they don't differentiate what's in a mouthfull if it isn't something big. I always cringe when I break a sickle section, and can't find the pieces. I know there's a good chance it's in the windrow.

Like I said previously..........lotta vets settle on hardware disease when they can't figure out what's wrong with a cow.

Some symptoms for you to look at

http://dairytechnologist.com/hardware-disease-in-cattle/

Another thing that kills mysteryiously can be a hay changeover. Abruplty switching types of hay. Different grass types, hay from different locations, etc. Best practice is slowly switching over to the new hay. My understand is......it can take time for the cow to develop the bacteria in the rumen to handle different kind of forage. Push the protein during switchover to give the rumen lots of goodies for the bacteria.

I lost cows in clusters when I was traveling over 5 states to bring hay in during the drought in 2011. Always when feeding different stuff without a slow changeover. Worst was some 'native oats' out of Sulfur Springs TX. Guy later told me, after I mentioned the problem...&#8230;.."oh yeah, we gotta feed high protein with this hay"...&#8230;..thanks dood, woulda been nice to know :angry: Cows were bloating real bad, and a few died. After cramming cubes in 'em, the problem ceased.

Bloat also shows up if they've been starved back for any reason. They cram everything they can get ahold of into that gut. Best remedy is to turn them out to pasture, and let them walk it off. Cut access to the hay in other words.

Then you got the usual Prussic Acid, and Nitrate, poisoning. But they'll all show symptoms at one time, and can die very quickly.

Another thing I had to look up this year. Prussic Acid (Cyanide) in frost killed forage crops. I still have Haygrazer standing in the field. It's gone below freezing twice, and will go down to the 20's again tonight. I'm essentially going to be baling straw at this point,, if I can get it cut. (Stinkin PTO still waiting on a coupla parts for re-installation)

An overview...&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..

https://www.agweb.com/article/cyanide_potential_in_frost_affected_forage/

That's about all I can think of...feed wise. Hope it's of some help.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

I've heard of other things cattle find on pasture that can kill them.One guy had a burn hole and had thrown used diapers into it which didnt burn well.Cattle clogged up and died.Old batteries lying in weeds and cattle ate the lead,deadly to cattle.They would die fast with the lead and not look like hardware disease from what I've heard.Netwrap and plastic twine can also clog them up especialy if not ground.

Clooged up and dont eat may appear to some as hardware disease.Cut them open and find out!


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## sandbur (May 6, 2018)

About a month ago the first cow out on pasture grass & mineral free choice slowed her eating, separated from the others, face swelled up and after a week or so her brisket realy swelled up. Then she wouldn't even eat cubes. Vet said all signs were hardware's, Even an issue with the left side heartbeat. Took her to auction for slaughter only, no meds, and got $70

now a month or so later i have another one on day 2 of the same symptoms, difficulty eating & swallowing, separated from the others & lots of laying down. You can surely tell it has to do with digestion / swallowing. im quite confident the same thing is happening. I was pushing the cattle to eat the bermuda down low by not haying them yet. And there was some shotgun shooting out there recently & shell's on the ground. a google search pulled up some info including that cows will smell the sulfur in the shells & eat them. so yesterday i went on a shotgun shell retrieving expedition and put out hay. No vet for this one, straight to auction for slaughter.

So have any of you guys lost cattle to hardwares ? if so, how frequently ect... we had cattle out here 3 years straight & several years before that with no issues, but also no shotgun shooting either. nice clean bermuda pasture , no garbage, just maby 1 acre of oak woods.


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## farmersamm (Nov 2, 2017)

Certainly sounds like hardware disease, what with what you're seeing.

Only type of swelling in the head that I ever get is Lumpjaw. Happens when I feed Haygrazer that's been cut a bit late, and it gets real stiff stalks. Can also happen if it's over dried, like when it rains a lot, and you have to keep turning it to dry out so the bottom of the windrow doesn't mold......some of it gets so doggone dry from the repeated turning that it gets stiff as a pencil.

Lumpjaw makes a big bump on the lower jaw, which swells up till it usually bursts thru the skin, and drains pus. Can also happen when feeding wheat hay. They say the beard gets under the tissue in the gums.


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## carcajou (Jan 28, 2011)

Slaughter her for meat and then do a pm. She's worth more for hamburger and then you may find your answers too.


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

Hardware disease has nothing to do with digestion. The cow consumes a sharp object which sinks to the bottom of the reticulum. From there, parastatal movement of the stomach causes the sharp object to penetrate the reticulum and usually penetrates the heart sac. Anyway, stomach bacteria end up either in or around the heart sac and the cow becomes septic and usually dies. We milked over 100 cows for many years, always fed wire tied hay and didn’t have the tidiest of farmsteads and ran metal objects thru the field chopper on more than one occasion and I think we lost 1 cow to hardware disease. We too had a vet that diagnosed every sick cow with hardware but once we changed vets, no more hardware.


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## sandbur (May 6, 2018)

Well if the veterinarian's can't always figure it out I know I'm not going to and as far as slaughtering her for hamburger you got to have about a 6-month appointment to get her into any butcher shop around here but I would like to cut one open and see what the heck's going on but in the meantime I'm going to get some of my money back by sending them to auction


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

sandbur said:


> Well if the veterinarian's can't always figure it out I know I'm not going to and as far as slaughtering her for hamburger you got to have about a 6-month appointment to get her into any butcher shop around here but I would like to cut one open and see what the heck's going on but in the meantime I'm going to get some of my money back by sending them to auction


In your case, I would bypass the local vet and contact your state ag school with a vet program. If you do not know what your looking for, and your local vet does the necropsy, it will most definitely be hardware disease because that was his diagnosis.


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## Ray 54 (Aug 2, 2014)

No were near as much bird hunting around as years ago,but nobody worried about leaving shot gun shell in the field.

Your comment about forcing them to eat the Bermuda down low, if there are any bits of wire lost nails and staples you putting them in a position to more likely to be picking it up. Are you 110% sure there are no poison plants out in the pasture. If you have road frontage you get new weeds in my part of the world every year it seem. The gravel they put on the road edge has most every bad weed, and then the mowing spreads it more every year.

I am convinced my dad had cow die of puristic acid poisoning 30 years ago, vet said it couldn't from the plant I thought. I happened upon a article in a magazine that kind reinforced my thinking. I think the vet may have read the same story, cause he one day kind of dropped a comment I could of been right. But it took a whole bunch of things being out of normal for it to happen.

You can never know to much about what all is growing in your pasture. Grazing down short ,cow tend to eat plants that they normally will not touch. So if you should find a plant your not familiar with hopefully someone at the local ag chemical supply or the state extension agent can identify it. Or at least get you in the right plant family so you can look up pictures on line and be positive what it is.


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## sandbur (May 6, 2018)

Thank you all for all the replies. hopefully this has all come to an end and I won't have any more problems. I am going to make it a point to keep my pasture **** and span and if I have any more issues with cattle I'll be sure to post about it. maybe next time at autopsy will be in order LOL


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

I really got no business posting in this section cuz I only got 6 bovines (and ain't had them too long) and don't know squat about cows. The symptom of the swelled jaw area immediately made me think of "bottle jaw" in sheep. Bottle jaw is a sign of a heavy worm load or liver flukes. I did a quick gurgle search and it looks like cows get it too and for the same reason. I don't know iffn YOUR cow(s) look like the bottle jaw in the picture... You can gurgle it fer yerself and maybe make your own determination?

Mark

Don't take info MY post for any more than you paid for it


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## farmersamm (Nov 2, 2017)

And sometimes they just die for no reason.








I think people tend to blame themselves for losses, or blame others (bad feed, etc). Some guys never admit to losses, I've seen that too.

I'm no big time producer, and like other small guys, a few losses can really hurt. Cost of replacement, and the opportunity cost of all the calves the dead cow would have produced during her lifetime.

BTW...&#8230;.forcing pasture can be a problem. An animal will drop weight in two ways. Less intake, and walking weight off because there's nothing to eat (they're constantly moving to look for grass). The weight loss isn't readily apparent because they're such big animals. A few pounds doesn't show until they add up. Then it's expensive to put that weight back on.

I've always kept hay available year round. And, due to people problems, I cube all summer long in order to get them back up by the house in the evening. I'm in a poor location, it's getting populated around here, and some of these azzholes think this is public land. You can feed "grass stretcher" during the Summer months...&#8230;.14 or 12%. Doesn't take much, just enough to get them used to coming for it in the evening. Also makes it easier to get them in if they get out, or get up in your crop. Only takes a few days to train the ol' things to cubes. AND, FOR GOD'S SAKE, DON'T HAND FEED. It makes for a dangerous situation. They get used to coming up to you to get feed, and if you're in amongst them, it can get real dangerous...&#8230;.they're big animals. K'kins has a bad tendency to want to do that. I'd rather have them scatter when I go out with them, I don't want them to think they can just mob me. Not that they mean harm, just that they're big, and can do a lot of harm in a heartbeat.

Anyways, good luck with it. We've been thru unexplained loss cycles, and it's extremely stressful. After the first such experience, you get a trained eye...&#8230;...you always look for a dark patch on the ground indicating a down cow. We were going down the highway sometime last month I think it was, and K'kins spotted one while we we're traveling at 60mph. Guy probably had 50-60 animals out there, and she spotted it. You get that sensitive to the problem once it's happened to you.


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## Swv.farmer (Jan 2, 2016)

If you can I'd just put a magnet in every momy cow it's a good preventive.


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## sandbur (May 6, 2018)

THANK'S !!


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## IHCman (Aug 27, 2011)

Swv.farmer said:


> If you can I'd just put a magnet in every momy cow it's a good preventive.


I've been doing that to my replacement heifers and any yearling bulls I buy. I give them a magnet when they go through the chute. Figure its cheap insurance. I should be close to having given one to all my cows just through giving the replacement heifers one. Just a few older cows left.


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## farmersamm (Nov 2, 2017)

Also come in handy when you wanna stick 'em on the fridge


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## sandbur (May 6, 2018)

0ne final thought, the guys stapled targets to my shooting backstop and left them there. Two days later the paper targets were gone. The cows may have ate the targets with the staples. That may have been the hardware ?


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## Farmerbrown2 (Sep 25, 2018)

I think you may be on to something there.


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