I wrote a few weeks ago about Benjamin being sick. Unfortunately he still is. It seems he has pneumonia or something similar. He’s alert but very lethargic. Miguel and I spent an hour or so on Monday getting Ben into the head gate so that we could treat him with NuFlor. It sounds easy when I write it, but getting Benjamin to do anything he doesn’t want to is nigh on impossible. He’s a gentle bull, but he goes where he wants. To get him into the paddock, we have to bring all the cows, then herd them back out leaving him behind. Turning the cows into the barn paddock, where we store all the hay and produce, is like turning a kindergarten class into a candy store that doesn’t have lids on open containers of candy.
People do ask if we give our cows antibiotics. The answer is yes, in cases like this and only in cases like this. Benjamin was given an injection of Nuflor in the original post I mentioned above, and then he was given 30cc on Monday of this week, followed by 30cc on Thanksgiving. Benjamin is sick and he’s being treated with all things we think will help him get better. If Benjamin was a cow we were planning on eating at some point (he’s not) then we would follow the advised withdrawal period, plus a good safety factor. We only process cows a few times per year, so if he was remotely close on his scheduled time, we’d simply wait till the next time we process cows which would be months later. We do not give antibiotics as a general course of treatment, like in their food, or when they first arrive on farm. These are the things that people are generally worried about, the preventative usage of antibiotics. This we do not do.