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Straw warning! Check for grain. U/D CLLR home post 16

parsnipbun

Wise Old Thumper
We have had to rush Carnation-Lily-Lily -Rose into the vets today. She was totally cold and not eating this morning (seemed fine last night when put to bed at 6pm).

Her stomach is large and doughy and no stomach sounds at all.

After long discussion with vet and much feeling of stomach etc we think the most likely cause is the bale of straw we gave them on Sunday to help shield from wind/rain etc

At this time of year we shove in an entire bale into each 'chalet' and usually have no problem - however this year the bales we got have a lot of heads of grain still left on them for some reason - and CLLR is a guzzler for food - (she was literally starved before we rescued her and now overeats to compensate).

Looks like she spent the last couple of days hunting through the straw bale for all the heads of grain and stuffing them down and then drank loads (the water bowl was unusually low yesterday evening) and ended up with really bad swelling and impaction (though not a complete blockage).

She has been on a heat mat and drip all day (as well as meds obviously) and the vets are hoping that it is now easing . . . but we are still very worried.

The raw grain is very carbohydrate/sugars rich and will also dry out the stomach and make them drink a lot and then swell up with water . .

so the moral of the story - either buy cheap chopped straw that does not have a lot of grain heads in it - or just use hay bales even though straw stalks hold the warmth better . .

we just hope CLLR gets better overnight . . . but I thought I would post this warning
 
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Aaarrgghhhh... hope she continues to improve, wee soul...Lots of vibes for her....

Funny you should mention that actually... We started to use straw 3 days ago and Smudge has stasis..

Its a howling gale outside and pitch black but tomorrow i will be removing all straw from shed and runs....

Thank you for the warning... Bales of hay it is...

Love
Fee xx
 
I think it is just those with a lot of grain/heads in - but it may be that for whatever reason (time they harvested, the late summer, etc etc) a lot of straw is going to be like that this year.

It wasnt the weather as she couldnt care less about that - and the chalets are totally weather proof. it was a huge wodge of food in her stomach.

Really hoping she picks up in the night . . . the vets kept her in as they wanted to keep the drip in as long as possible.

not really sure she is a poor 'wee soul' though - she weighed in at 4.2 kilos today - she is big boned!!!:lol:
 
Thank you for the vibes

Re the vets fees - I shall be trying to push more willow sticks at people to try and pay the vets fees :lol: Or I do have quite a lot of fresh cow parsley here at present and was thinking of selling some of that before we get a bad frost that knocks it back . . .
 
Poor girl, sending loads of vibes for her x that's worrying about the straw, I was just going to buy a sack from the dust free company... Not sure now :( x
 
Poor girl, sending loads of vibes for her x that's worrying about the straw, I was just going to buy a sack from the dust free company... Not sure now :( x

I suspect that the larger manufacturers and packers may well extract the grain (they can use it for hen feed for example so its worth extracting) - ours is direct from the farmer though.
 
Sending loads of vibes. I really hope she recovers well. Sounds like she had a terrible time before she came to you.

Thanks for the warning. I'll check my straw.
 
I checked my farm straw bale today and yes it has lots of little seed heads on it...

Going to the tip today, seems a waste but heh-ho. the buns can have nommy hay instead!!
 
Well Carnation Lily Lily Rose is back home this afternoon - after sucking up litres of water on the vets drip. She is on all the usual meds but we are to try and take special care of getting enough fluids in (I can give subcuts if needs be) and keep her in to watch her.

This will be a challenge (the keeping in) as we already have 6 buns indoors plus a hare so are pretty packed and father coming for xmas so wants the 'spare' room .

So hopefully she is well on the way to being better again - we just have to clear all the grain heads out of the chalet areas now and replace all the straw with hay. We suspect that slow growth due to the dryness in the late part of the year may have meant that much of the crop was very low growing or smaller than usual and perhaps the heads then got missed in cropping so there are more grain heads than normal in the straw??

It hasnt affected any of the others) but she is very prone to pigging . .

So hopefully all well with CLLR

However our bank account took a huge bashing (£200).

I had just reckoned that we had 'done' xmas for £120 (by making all our presents, not buying ANY alcohol or extra food for xmas, only spending £5 on each other for presents etc ) and was feeling that it was not the total monetary disaster it could have been . . .

so £200 was a bit of a blow to put it mildly

I guess its back to seeing what I can sell !!! Cow Parsley anyone????
 
I checked my farm straw bale today and yes it has lots of little seed heads on it...

Going to the tip today, seems a waste but heh-ho. the buns can have nommy hay instead!!

If you have a composter, straw is a good 'brown' for it.
 
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