The following pictures are published in the interests of educating others and in the hope that someone might enlighten me as to what may have led to the damage shown.
Please DO NOT continue if you're likely to find red a disturbing colour.
Communication welcome via the link above.
The calf was a twin, born at 264 days gestation. The other twin was found dead after birth, weighing 16.9kg; this calf weighed 26.5kg. The calf was 47 days old when euthanased on 26 October. Her dead-weight was 65kg.
On or about 13 October she fell awkwardly from standing and there was an audible snap, after which her left stifle tended to swivel out from her body (as it had done a little in her first few days of assisted standing early in her life, before resolving itself to a large degree).
Left hip socket. As far as I can tell, the material in the bottom of the socket is the cartilage torn from the top of the femur, still attached to the ligament through the socket. There are two areas of erosion in the photograph. The rest of the surface was smooth. There was a significant amount of red-tinged fluid in the joint when it was cut open.
Right hip socket. Far less fluid on this side, material at bottom is remainder of ligament which I cut to remove the femur.
Both femoral heads, the right is on the left and vice versa. An attempt was made to line the femurs up in the same orientation.