Treating milk fever with a bicycle pump

Tweet

I wrote about the ‘Madigan squeeze’ which replicates the birth process and is used on calves and foals to help them get started in life. It’s quite a simple technique in a way but surprisingly effective. MyLotter Lenore Plassman (@sallypup) made a comment which reminded me of a remedy my parents would use if a cow went down (collapsed) with milk fever. Milk fever or hypocalcemia is caused by low levels of calcium in the blood. It occurs mostly when cows calved. A bicycle pump would be used to inject air into the cow’s udder. I remember the procedure was documented in one of the All Things Bright and Beautiful veterinary books. Of course, they have much more modern treatments now. When my parents were farming, there wasn't a vet within cooee so it was treat animals as best you could and hope for the best. Pumping air into the udder was believed to stimulate nerves and blood flow, helping boost calcium metabolism. It may also have sent signals to the body to release stored calcium. Bizarre as this may seem, it did work, and again I can’t help wondering who came up with such a solution. The photo is of one of my grandmother’s dairy cows.