A vet ruminates on her practice with cows

They used to say that corn should be knee-high by the Fourth of July. A modern farmer would find that growth disappointing.

This year, Larry Dreier, who farms just outside Norwood, says his corn is nearly as tall as he is. So far, this has been the best growing season he's ever seen. The crops were planted early, and the rains have been timely. And it hasn't been too hot, so his dairy cows are happy and productive.

Morning Edition has been checking in with the Dreier farm this season. This week, we were there during a veterinarian's visit, and she was able to talk while she worked. Here are highlights from our interview:

Why examine a cow through its rear?

Veterinarian Tanya Olson carries a portable ultrasound unit, and comes to the farm every two weeks to check Dreier's cows for pregnancy and other health issues. She examines and treats about 70 cows on every visit.

She maneuvered the ultrasound sensor deep inside a cow's rear end with her left hand, looking through a video viewfinder strapped to her head.

"So what we do is, we reach in rectally because the reproductive tract is right below this," she said. "In a person you would go from the outside looking in ... But a cow is so big that the ultrasound won't reach that far. So it's a much shorter distance to go in rectally, and the cows honestly don't seem to mind it a whole lot. I put my hands on the uterus and just kind of lightly maneuver it around and touch the probe to the outside of it. And you can see directly in."

Isn't this work physically demanding?

"It can be, yeah," said Olson. "It's hard on your shoulders for the most part and it requires quite a bit of hand strength, I guess. So, when you are first learning how to what we call palpate cows to check to see if they are pregnant, I remember taking a lot of ibuprofen."

Do you ever switch arms?

"You know, I've thought about it, because I have a partially torn rotator cuff in my left arm. Some days my shoulder can get a little bit sore. So I've thought about it. ...

"It sounds silly, but your fingers on one hand get really smart, and if I ask my right hand to do the same thing, the fingers aren't as smart. So I have to retrain them."

You got injured doing an exam?

"We were trying to help deliver her calf, and her uterus was actually twisted. So rolled, like 360 degrees, which is a fairly uncommon thing, but it does happen sometimes in dairy cows. So they can't deliver if the uterus is twisted.

"So we were trying to manually untwist it ... you're trying to get the whole uterus of a cow plus a 90-pound calf to kind of roll around. And so it's a lot of shoulder work, and as we were doing this the cow decided to lay down and I was still standing up. So my shoulder kind of caught the brunt of it."

What was it about cattle that intrigued you?

"I don't know. Not necessarily the working hours or conditions. But cows I enjoy working with partly because they are really gentle animals for the most part. I think they're very curious. They're fun to work with.

"And I also really like working with dairy farmers. They're very down to earth and very hardworking, and I couldn't pick a better group of people to work with than farmers."