Why Swiss farmers put holes in bellies of cows

• Muhamad Rawi
• 01/03/2018
• 3420
• 4,169

Have you seen a picture like this before? a cow with a big hole in the belly?

Cows like this are called cannulated cows or in other words (fistulated cows). Farmers in Switzerland and some other countries in Europe perform a surgical procedure to cows to allow them monitor and test the inside of cow's belly and to assess the digestive system functionality through obtaining samples directly from the inside of cow's belly.

This procedure refers back to 1922 when it was first performed. Farmers still perform these procedures nowadays for the sake of helping cows to digest better (they say so). Cow's stomach is full of fungi and microbes and some cows happen to have a digestive problem, so farmers do this procedure in order to give them appropriate feeding directly through this cannula and examine the digestive process. Zoologists use this procedure too and subject the samples they obtain from cows to laboratory testing. 

The procedure have specific time in order to prevent contamination and infection of the wound so usually these cows are cannulated prior slaughter procedure, they will be slaughtered eventually in all cases and also the longer this hole exists, the more occurrence of wound infection.

This procedure might be painful to cows especially if not performed under general or local anesthesia which is the main routine unfortunately. There is also the risk of infection and poor digestion due to the risk of further contamination of cow's stomach as the stomach is not sealed anymore. 

This weird procedure was objected by PETA organization which cares for well being of animals and opposes any acts of animal abuse or torture. The organization also released a huge number of photographs and videos of these cows and they called it (abuse of innocent animals). However, PETA were not lucky after all and the procedure is still performed till now.

Tell us what do you think of this procedure and if you like this article share it with friends.