The dog effortlessly jumped into the back and then we continued on down the track. After about 200 metres he swung left, stopping at the gate entrance, which I hopped out to open. I could see the cow sitting up in the field, about 20 metres away: a Holstein Friesian. She seemed bright enough. I could see a large bucket of water and a pile of hay just in front of her and the calving jack discarded a couple of metres behind where she lay. Arthur drove through and I shut the gate behind him. As I strolled over to join him where he was parking up by the cow, I noticed the other cattle at the far end of the field grazing. There were probably thirty; this was the field of ‘dry’ cows – the ones that were no longer being milked because they were due to calve in the next two months.
Arriving at the Land Rover I grabbed my box of rectal sleeves and lube, and approached the cow’s back end. Glove on, lube applied, I inserted my hand. I could immediately feel what Arthur had told me: everything did indeed feel abnormally tight. For a moment I too was confused, and then as I examined her further I realized my arm was having to twist like a corkscrew as I explored. And suddenly I knew exactly what was wrong.
‘What do you think?’ Arthur said.
‘She’s got a uterine torsion – that’s why you can’t get your hand in very far.’
‘A what?’
‘A uterine torsion. It tends to happen right at the end of pregnancy when the calf is so big, the cow slips or rolls, and the uterus ends up twisting over on itself so that it prevents the calf from being born. We either need to untwist it or we’ll have to do a caesarean.’
‘Well, there it is!’ he said, removing his flat cap and scratching his forehead. ‘I’ve been calving cows for forty years and never to my knowledge come across this. Can we untwist it?’
‘We can have a go – but is there anyone who can give us a hand? This will be a three-person job. We need to roll the cow, but I need to keep my hand inside her to keep the uterus and calf in one place, then we rotate the cow around her and hopefully it will untwist.’
‘Well I never. I’m sure Mrs Watts is about, I’ll go and find her.’ He jumped in the Land Rover and headed back to the gate.
My heart was pumping. Of course I knew the theory behind the technique of correcting a uterine torsion – it was a classic exam question – but actually executing the procedure was a whole new ball game. Unlike some vet students, though, I had been lucky enough to have witnessed it at first hand, when I was seconded to a practice in Fermoy in Ireland. I remembered Ian, the vet, stripped to the waist on a bitterly cold night, demonstrating how important it was to work out which way the uterus had twisted so that you unroll it properly.
With Arthur gone, I kept checking and double-checking the direction of the twist; it was going anticlockwise, which meant the uterus had to be rotated clockwise to untwist it, or else rotating the cow anticlockwise if the uterus was held in place … Was that right? It seemed counter-intuitive to be rolling the cow in the direction of the twist. I went through it again in my mind, step by step. Yes … that was right, I was certain. Or if I was wrong, I suppose I’d be calling Martin or Neil to help me with my first caesarean!
Arthur soon returned with his wife, a small, round lady with red rosy cheeks and a friendly smile. It looked as if Arthur had dragged her away from doing something in the kitchen; probably baking some delicious cake, I thought. Her floral dress and apron were visible under her threadbare, fern green quilted jacket, which she had obviously just thrown on when Arthur called for her, along with her wellies and beige bucket hat.
‘Well, you must be the new vet. I’m Mary, Arthur’s wife, very nice to meet you,’ she said. ‘Arthur tells me this is a tricky one, and something about rolling the cow?’
I set about explaining the situation to her and the object of the manoeuvre.
‘Well, what a job!’ she replied.
‘Is that OK? Will you and Arthur be able to roll her?’ I asked.
‘Oh, don’t you worry about us. We’ve been farming since long before you were born, and we’ve rolled a cow or two in that time. Haven’t we, Arthur? But never for this, mind.’
‘Indeed we have,’ Arthur agreed.
‘Great. Well, we need to roll her onto her left and then all the way over,’ I said, miming the action as I mentally checked I was right.
‘Right you are.’
Lying fully stretched out on the grass behind the cow, I gently reinserted my right arm. I felt the taut band and, following it in an anticlockwise direction as far as I could, I could just feel a hoof of the calf. It was tight, but I gently managed to insert my arm far enough to grab the leg. That was a good sign. If I was able to get my arm in that far, it meant the twist was probably only 180 degrees and we had a better chance of untwisting it.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘I’m ready for you to roll her.’ They gently rocked her onto her left flank. With the cow’s legs now exposed, I had to be careful not to be kicked. Arthur took some ropes and looped them around the front and back legs separately, then took hold of the front legs and head, while Mary took the back legs, and together they pulled on them, gradually rolling her onto her back and then onto her right side. Bending both hind and front legs up, they were then able to rock her back up into a sitting position.
The effect was miraculous: the taut band was gone, and I could now insert my arm much further and more easily I could feel the calf’s legs and the head, so it was presenting normally, and its mother was obviously feeling more comfortable. I felt a contraction, then another. On the third one, her waters broke. With my arm still inside her up to my shoulder, my head just inches away and my whole body stretched out behind me, I was on the receiving end of the entirety of her amniotic and allantoic fluid. About 12 litres of warm, slimy, pungent foetal fluid drenched my head, flooded down my back into my pants, and down my legs, filling the bottom couple of inches of my wellingtons. It was as though someone had just thrown a bathtub full of the stuff all over me. I could not have been any wetter. I realized why, on that wild and windy night in Ireland, Ian had taken his top off. Why hadn’t I thought that through? The result was, quite simply, disgusting.
‘Oh my! Well, I never!’ commented Mary. ‘I think you might be a little wet young man. But should I deduce from this that rolling her has worked?’
I desperately attempted to maintain my composure and professionalism and sound in complete control.
‘Yes, yes indeed, Mrs Watts. It worked perfectly. We … we should be able to calve her without too much difficulty now.’
I hadn’t moved at all since being drenched. There was no need for me to stay in that position now the uterus had untwisted; besides, the next job was to get the calf out. But I knew any movement I made would just reinforce how disgustingly drenched I was. There was nothing for it though, so taking a deep breath, while at the same time trying not to inhale, I got up and squelched over to the back of the Land Rover to retrieved my calving ropes.
Placing one of these around each of the calf’s forelegs, we then connected them up to the jack and slowly ratcheted him out: a large, healthy bull calf. All was well. It was a great result; the torsion must have been a recent event for it to have caused so little trauma to either the uterus or calf. I was delighted with the outcome – though couldn’t help being somewhat distracted by the warm, slimy fluid that was rapidly cooling and congealing against my body and, as it did so, becoming more viscose, sticking my hairs to my clothing. The result was that every movement I now made involved a painful plucking of my body hair. I tried to maintain a cool air of professionalism, but my movements must have resembled that of a possessed robot. Fortunately, Arthur and Mary were too delighted with the calf to notice me.