DEATH AT THE SPUR

Some times things happen at cow outfits no one can explain.  Sometimes it is a act of nature, some times it is man made and some times you never find out how it come about.
    Our last year at the Spur feedlot was hectic to say the least.  For a while  at night packs of wild dogs off  the reservation would come into the feedlot  and kill sick  calves in the hospital pens. One day a goverment hunter stopped by. I told him the problem and he handed me a gallon plastic jug with the most vile smelling stuff you ever smelled. He instructed me to only open the jug with rubber gloves on. He then told me dip a hot dog into the solution with the hotdog on a wire and flip it out into the brush  without touching it.   5 pounds of hot dogs later and we had no dog problem. But the tribe was sure upset, but we didnt know how they died. I kept that jug hid up in the rafters of the saddle house until the yard closed down, only bringing it out when the dogs needed feeding.. When we closed that yard down for my own peice of mind i took that jug and poured into a septic system so some unsuspecting person wouldnt get into it. But the tribe never  knew what killed all thoses dogs.
      One morning we went into a pen to shake out a  load of fat cattle for a packer. We went to the back side and hollered a little, with the gate open the cattle dashed out . EXCEPT, about half the cattle were laying stiff on their sides , quivering!! As we drove the remaining cattle to the scales periodicly a steer would fall over and start quivering. Some of them would recover, regain their feet and amble around lost. Others died where they fell!! The new superintendent was a young man a bit older than me with a college education that was away  far and beyond the rest of us. He was a great guy but this was a new deal to him and us. As the day progressed in a yard of 45000 head or so we found more and more cattle with the same conditions, some were even blind. almost all were fat cattle or cattle who had been on feed at least 70 days.
     Vets were called in, autopsies conducted, some cattle that were on the verge of death were killed to get fresh samples of rummans and blood and tissues. No one could tell us why these cattle were experiancing this condition.
   Then one morning after two weeks of hell the super drove in and told me to get in the blazer with him. We  drove to the feedmill and went in.  We went to the bin containing the suppliments, minerals and vitamins.  We took a 5 gallon bucket full of the powder and drove to the closest lab and told them we wanted a complete analysis of the contents.  The super had a notion but wouldnt tell anyone until he got the lab report.
      When it came back it confirmed the supers suspitions, no vitamin E.  The company who made the suppliment hadnt been putting vitamin E in the mix.  As the cattle fattened their metabolisim required more vitamin e and they werent getting it. Ime sure a settlement was reached but i never knew what it was. We cowboys armed ourselves with needles and bottles of injectable vitamin e and rode through the pens and every animal that so much as looked sideways got a shot of the juice. Problem solved. But it very well could have gone unsolved until that load of suppliment was used up.