Secrets of the Dead

摘要

If an animal's cause of death is unknown, it pays to have your vet perform a necropsy (if you find the animal soon enough) to try to determine what happened, especially if a change in management could eliminate further deaths. A postmortem exam mightdetermine whether the animal died from hardware, pneumonia, poisoning or some other preventable problem. W. Mark Hilton, DVM, associate professor of beef production medicine, Purdue University, tells producers their dead calf is worth nothing, but a dead calf with a diagnosis can be the most valuable animal on the farm.