Remember the old times when your mother made you wear those ear warmers your grandma knitted? And it seems that we’re not the only ones to wear that.
Below we can see some farmers that are protecting their adorable animals from harsh weather with knitted clothing as well.
A Twitter user @ThisFarmingMan_ has recently shared a picture of one especially cute calf rocking pink earmuffs and it snowballed like crazy. Now, the image has over 160K likes and has people obsessing with the baby cow fashion trends.
It is important to protect calves from the cold as it can lead to severely frostbitten body parts as well as hypothermia and even death. “Frostbite is the damage to body tissues that occurs when these tissues freeze,” wrote Dr. W. Dee Whittier in a paper called Calves and the Cold. “The extremities are most at risk. Frozen ears and tails result in changes in cattle appearance but do not affect cattle performance significantly.” If a calf freezes its feet, however, it must be put to sleep, or it will die.
“Newborn calves are most at risk because they are wet and because they have a large surface area in relation to their total body mass,” Dr. Whittier continued. “Calves are not fully capable of maintaining temperature the first several hours of life. Newborn calves have a circulatory system that is less able to respond to cold changes as compared to more mature animals.”
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Weather conditions have a great effect on the risk of frostbite and hypothermia with wind often being the biggest factor. “The effect of wind is often referred to as wind chill and tells how living things ‘feel the temperature.’ The wind chill is often many degrees colder than the actual temperature. Humidity has a large effect on cold as well since humid air can take more warmth away from animals.”
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When it comes to treating frostbite in cattle, Dr. Whittier recommends the following:
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- Detect frostbite early. Examine newborn calves carefully when conditions create a risk. If ear-tips are frozen, there is a significant risk that feet may be experiencing damage as well.
- Thaw tissues as quickly as possible. Much of the damage of frostbite occurs during the thawing process. Ice crystals form that damage all tissues. A fast thaw decreases ice-crystal time.
- Once tissues are thawed, re-freezing must be prevented. This nearly always means housing with heat for several days. Because of damage to circulation from the initial freezing, these tissues will re-freeze very easily.
- Tissues that will recover from freezing should stay warm. If tissues are cold to the touch the next day, there has probably been enough damage so that blood supply is gone and the feet or other parts will become gangrenous.
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Here’s what people said about the latest cow fashion trends: