More Cows Suffer From Hardware Complaint

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29004, 19 September 1959, Page 8

More Cows Suffer From Hardware Complaint

An unusual number of house cows suffering from traumatic percarditis, sometimes called more simply hardware disease, have recently come to the notice of a local veterinarian. The hardware comprises pieces of wire, staples, nails and darning needles. Over a period of about six years the veterinarian said he had had only one or two cases of this trouble, but recently there had been seven or eight or more cases. He believes that the incidence of hardware disease may be an aftermath of last season’s drought when cows grazin , about the house yard had to fossick harder than usual for their feed and in the process swallowed these unpalatable morsels. The foreign body lies in the

reticulum, which is part of the cow’s stomach, and then when there is extra abdominal pressure, such as occurs at calving, particularly if the animal gives birth to twins, the foreign body is pressed through the nearby diaphragm and into the heart. Animals diagnosed as suffering from this trouble can be operated on, but the outcome is generally death. The trouble usually shows up at calving time or soon afterwards. Cows run a temperature, lie abou', do not feed consistently and their milk production falls off. Death may be quite sudden but the animal may linger on for as long as two weeks. In two cases treated by this veterinarian lately the offending foreign body has been a darning needle.