A cattle farmer in the Boissevain-Morton municipality recently found out one of his cows had rabies.

Pete Penner has been raising cattle for 47 years and he says this is the first time he has ever had an animal test positive for the disease. It all started when Pete and his son Steve decided to round up the cow.

“A cow was acting kind of strange and I suspected that was possibly what it was so we tried to round her up and she ended up in a dugout because she wasn’t that good on her feet. We had to fish her out of there and we were handling her around her head because we had a chain around her head. So Steve and I ended up having to get needles for rabies as a precaution.”

Penner says rabies in cattle is quite rare. He was told by a veterinarian the cow had to be bitten by something to get rabies. They had the cow put down and sent the brain to Ottawa for testing.

“We don’t know what the source was but I suspect the cow was bitten by a skunk or maybe a fox. Something had to bite her to give it to her. The cattle are quarantined with the until the 27th of December but so far nothing is showing any signs of rabies. It doesn’t seem to spread from cow to cow. It can but it’s very unlikely” said Penner.

The recent fog and heavy frost that hit the region in early December cost Pete Penner three other head of cattle. “The storm knocked out the power and the cattle were looking for water so they ended up on a different dugout, the whole bunch of them went on there and they fell through.

“Two cows and a calf drowned in that incident.”