Fused leg joints, a water belly and an inside-out calf make for tough call-outs

As the lambs and calves keep on coming, so do the awful birth defects that put the mother’s life at risk

The calvings and lambings are still coming thick and fast. Despite many herds having more than 80pc calved, the end of March tends to be busier for us vets than any time in February. The calves have had longer to ‘cook’ in their mothers, who have been dry for over four months now in some cases.

Similarly with ewes, we are seeing lots of big singles and some of them need our assistance to enter the world. Last Thursday, in the middle of a very busy day, I successfully delivered two live lambs. It was a nice, ‘handy’ lambing, where a set of twins led to four legs being present in the birth canal.

It was a hogget and the farmer didn’t want to take any chances. It took a little while to sort one lamb from the other and to be 100pc sure I had two legs belonging to the same lamb before I started to pull. The two lambs blinked in the sunlight of one of the first sunny days we’ve had in the last five months.

The farmer was a bit puzzled when I asked him if he minded me taking a photo of the two lambs. I explained that delivering live calves and lambs is still something that lifts the spirits for every vet. We get to see our fair share of mishaps and, all too often, dead calves or lambs.

A lot of the time, the farmer has tried in vain to get them out and by the time we are called, its more to save the cow/ewe than it is to deliver a live calf or lamb. A nastier development this spring is the rise in the number of birth defects that make calving or lambing very difficult.

Prior to my mood-lifting lambing, I had seen a spate of birth defects over the previous few days. It all started when I was on call last weekend. It was busy, but manageable, and by 10.30pm on Saturday night, my bed was starting to call to me. But the call was not to be answered for another number of hours. Instead, I had to head to a cow having difficulty calving.

The farmer was exacerbated on the phone. “There’s loads of room, he said, but the calf just won’t budge. As I drove toward the farm, I was contemplating what the possible issues could be. Maybe it was a double muscle calf and it was ‘stuck at the hips’. Maybe the cow had an old pelvic injury that was stopping the calf from moving normally through the birth canal.

When I knelt down behind the cow to take a look, I had a fair idea what the issue was and I sighed. It wasn’t going to be simple. The calf’s legs, head and ribcage were through the birth canal and visible. It was quite a small calf so size wasn’t an issue. I put a hand in and my suspicions were confirmed. This calf had a ‘water belly’.

This is the colloquial term for foetal ascites, a condition where the calf develops abnormally in the uterus, leading to its abdomen filling up with fluid to more than double its size. The front of the calf passes normally through the birth canal, but the large, fluid-filled abdomen causes the calf to get jammed.

The only option in a scenario like this is to make an incision in the belly of the calf to let the fluid drain. Any water belly calf that I have ever seen has been dead, even before the farmer started to pull, so its really a salvage act to save the cow.

I used a guarded blade, carefully moved it into position and made a large cut in the calf, just behind its rib cage, resulting in a gush of fluid. Once the fluid was drained, we were thankfully able to get the calf out. A difficult one, with an exhausted farmer, vet and cow, and a deformed calf as an end result. Nothing very photogenic there.

The next deformity wasn’t long afterwards. A ewe was waiting for me back at the practice. “I can only find a head,” was the farmers complaint and, as I pulled up alongside the trailer, I was hoping for another ‘handy’ one. “Ill make you a coffee,” was the message that popped up on my phone from one of our admin team, as I put on some gloves.

A warm cup of coffee and maybe even a biscuit would be just what the doctor ordered. Once I knelt down behind the ewe and put in my hand, I realised it would be a while before I got my warm beverage. The lamb’s head was the first thing I felt and it was off at a funny angle. I felt along the neck and down to the two front legs, which were bent and unmovable.

I had a very good idea what the issue was and a caesarian was the only way this deformed lamb was going to be got out. A larger than normal incision was required to get out the lamb, whose joints were all fused, giving it the feel of a solid wooden toy rather than a normal animal.

The lamb’s two front legs were fused at a very abnormal angle and the hind limbs were curved in the textbook ‘sickle shape’. Schmallenberg virus is the most likely cause — a midge-borne disease that has seen a resurgence in the past 12 months. Another one that doesn’t make for a nice photo.

The last, but certainly not least, deformity of the weekend was a real humdinger. “I haven’t a clue what’s sticking out of her,” said the farmer as he greeted me. Indeed, when I saw the cow that was calving, I wasn’t surprised at his confusion.

A bloody mass of tissue was visible at the cow’s vagina where I had expected to see two feet with ropes attached. A quick exam revealed what I feared — the calf was what is referred to as a schistosome. Schistosomus reflexus, to give it its full title, is a congenital defect that results in an extremely deformed calf.

The spine is curved in a completely inflexible U shape, resulting in the head and front legs pointing in the same direction as the hind legs. The calf is literally inside out, with all the abdominal organs, as well as the heart and lungs, all visible.

This is what was visible in the birth canal of the cow I was looking at. The cow was “the best cow in the herd”, so we elected to carry out a caesarian to minimise any possible trauma or stress.

It’s been a spring full of the weird and wonderful, and last weekend leaned heavily towards the weird. Here’s hoping for a few ‘normal’ lambings and calvings over the coming weeks.

‘A lot of the time, by the time we are called, it is more to save the cow/ewe than it is to deliver a live calf or lamb’