When I examined her, she had a very high temperature and seemed almost septic. We threw the kitchen sink at her — antibiotics, anti- inflammatories, intravenous fluids, oral fluids — anything I could think of that might get her to turn the corner.

Sadly, she continued to deteriorate and we decided to perform a ‘salvage section’ — a Caesarian on a critically ill cow with no chance of survival. As soon as the calf is out, the cow is put to sleep.

The calf (a heifer) was on the ground in a jig time, but, despite our best efforts, it didn’t make it either. A quick post-mortem revealed that the cow had a sizeable abscess on her liver that had burst. She never stood a chance.

You can understand why the farmer was so down. Every farmer is up to their eyes at this time of year and, with the weather not playing ball, every day can be a struggle.

There is also an element of ‘Instagram versus reality’ in the agriculture community. Instagram — an online platform where people share pictures of their daily lives — is a hugely positive space, but it generally involves smiling people, blue skies, perfect landscapes and, in the ag section, perfect facilities and animals.

But even on the best farms in the country, at this time of year, sheds get messy and things go wrong. That’s reality.

So I reassured the farmer that he was far from the only one with problems. I told him about a few recent ‘disasters’.

I was asked to see a pedigree bull that was bleeding from his nose, “on and off”. The farmer wasn’t too concerned but wanted to be safe rather than sorry. He rang me first thing in the morning but told me to hold off until 2pm, when the pressure would be off both of us.

Then he rang again at 12 in a serious panic. “Can you call right now?” he asked, and as it happened, I was only a mile up the road. I pulled up alongside the bull’s pen to see him breathe his last, blood pouring from his nostrils.

He had a condition called posterior vena caval thrombosis, where an abscess had eaten into one of the biggest veins in his body, causing it to burst and pour into his lungs. There was nothing that could have been done to save him.

Another case involved a calf with a broken leg. The calf was of show quality — a rowan heifer calf with all the right muscles in all the right places. Her arrival into the world was a tough one, however.

“We should really have called one of ye,” said the farmer, “but once the head popped out, we had to stay going.” The head happened to be the smallest part of the calf and, when the pressure came on at the hips, there was a very audible snap.

The pressure of the calving rope on the calf’s left knuckle had caused the bone to fracture.

When I examined the calf, the fracture was obvious. The only thing for it was to cast the leg. As I was placing the cast on the sedated calf’s leg, I explained that, in fractures like this, there can be complications.

Sometimes the pressure that causes the fracture can also damage the blood vessels in the same area. This can affect healing and in some severe cases, cause the end of the leg to become necrotic.

The farmer wasn’t letting my negativity anywhere near him — this calf was going to be a show-stopper, end of story. Unfortunately, two weeks later was where the story would end.

The calf was going fine for a week, but then started to become unwell. I examined the bottom of the casted leg and could immediately smell the decaying flesh. The blood supply had been severely damaged and necrosis had set in. The only option was to put the calf to sleep.

Probably the most frustrating recent case was a heifer I had performed a Caesarian on. When we saw the size of the calf on the ground, everyone was happy that there would not have been any hope of a normal vaginal delivery.

The heifer got lots of pain relief and antibiotics. I even gave her some oral fluids and an epidural as the farmer admitted that he had spent “a good while trying to calve her before I rang”.

Four days later, I rang the farmer for an update and he told me she wasn’t going as well as he would have liked. I called in later that day and, on rectal exam, I could feel the initial stages of peritonitis — an infection in the abdominal cavity that causes the intestines and other organs to stick together.

It is a possible complication of any surgery but I was very annoyed that this heifer had it. I had been so careful during the surgery, even silently complementing myself on my stitching. Pride always comes before a fall I suppose.

I gave her more pain relief and a high dose of a different antibiotic. As I’m writing, she’s no better, but hasn’t deteriorated either — picking at meal and nibbling at silage. At best she’s going to be a cull cow —hugely frustrating.

Just so you know, you’re not alone when it comes to problems this spring. But as the weather improves, all we can do is look forward to better days.

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Eamon O’Connell is a vet with Summerhill Vet Clinic, Nenagh