3 Premature dead calves

[Farming4you]

We have had 3 fall calves already born, premature and not breathing...a couple with hardly any hair. Is anyone else having this issue? It shouldn't still be from the drought and our summer hasn't been too rough. They are well taken care of with plenty of grass, water and shade. We do rotational grazing so they have had a steady supply of grass. Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

Where are you located?

 

[Anonymous]

Do you vaccinate?

 

[sim.-ang.king]

If she had shots, there are some late season poison plants that could make them abort. Rotate off of that pasture is one option.

 

[Anonymous]

And some MLV can cause abortions too.
Lepto, ibr, plants, vaccines ...could be a lot of things.

 

[Lucky_P]

If you have another one, you need to submit to your veterinary diagnostic laboratory for a diagnostic workup. If at all possible, get placenta(afterbirth), and a maternal blood sample, too - oftentimes, when we're dealing with an abortion problem, the placenta is damaged, and there are no abnormalities in the fetus. In most cases, definitive cause of abortion is not determinable - but the diagnosticians are able to 'rule out' the more common causes that you and your veterinarian can do much about - IBR, BVD, Leptospirosis, Neospora, Coxiella, etc.


Had two cows from my own fall-calving herd abort calves about 2 weeks ago; caught the first one of 'em before the buzzards got to it, performed a necropsy and diagnostic tests - diagnosed it as a Neospora abortion. Second one was about half-eaten and pretty rotten, but I have little doubt that it also was a Neospora-induced abortion. No more abortions in the past two weeks, but those two young cows will be taking a ride to the salebarn the next time they rotate back past the barnlot.

Decent discussion of Neospora abortion, from my friend Dr. Arnold, here: http://afsdairy.ca.uky.edu/extension/re ... oracaninum

Looking for Neospora & lesions it causes in bovine abortion/stillbirth workups has been standard practice at our lab for over 20 years, but until the past couple of years, I could count on one hand the number of suspected or confirmed cases we'd diagnosed. But, over the past two years or so, we've been finding it much more frequently - and I don't think that we were 'missing' the diagnosis in the past.

If the problem is Neospora related, culling cows that abort is essential - and prevent dogs/coyotes/wolves from having the chance to consume aborted fetuses, placenta, or dead cows.
There is a serologic test to determine if cows are infected or not - but it's fairly expensive @ $25/head. I have to do some more research on the vaccine, but what I've read so far isn't too encouraging.

 

[brimmer X]

That was a good article, Lucky.

 

[Lucky_P]

Yep, b-X. It is a pretty good overview of that particular problem.

In retrospect, I may have been having some Neospora abortions for 2-3 years - would sometimes have a cow come up open - and would occasionally find - weeks/months after the fact - what was left of a mid to late gestation fetus in a corner of the pasture or up in the edge of the woods. Moving 'em, these days, to a new paddock every day or two, I'm less likely to miss one - though if they spend 2 days in a paddock, the critters may have cleaned up or drug off the evidence without me knowing...
It's pretty disheartening, knowing that at any time for the next couple of months, I could go out and find another cow or two that may have aborted, on any given day - and there's nothing you can do about it, and not necessarily any warning signs to look for.

Don't know that I'd want to test the whole herd, even if it were less expensive to do - I might not be pleased with the result... and the potential need to cull large numbers of animals

So many things can cause an occasional sporadic abortion, but if, like Farming4You, you've had 3 abortions in quick succession, it's really important to make an attempt to find out what's causing it - and whether or not there's anything you can do to stop it, or prevent a 'repeat performance'.

 

[AussieLim]

What breed?

Any possible genetic disorders??

 

[sizmic]

Lucky, since you diagnosed mine back some time ago, I haven't noticed any obvious abortions. We treated the cow and she has since gone on to be our most prolific donor. Some people might take exception to that last statement but she is one dang fine momma cow and so are her 14+ daughters in our herd. She was within 30 minutes of going to town when Dr. Vance showed up and said he might be able to help her. She raises a great calf every year after we flush her. Got her best ever bull calf on her now born in very early March, guessing the weight at 625 right now.

Sizmic

 

[Putangitangi]

...Don't know that I'd want to test the whole herd, even if it were less expensive to do - I might not be pleased with the result... and the potential need to cull large numbers of animals...

When I discovered Neospora in my herd, I looked back through records from ten years before and realised there were probably other families carrying it. We had no horizontal transmission, but some evidence of vertical, with abortions in mothers and daughters. I tested a representative or two from each family, which kept the cost down a bit and found the lines which carried it. I culled out the commercial/non-pedigree animals and kept only the one pedigree cow and continued down with only one of her daughters. I now only have a yearling daughter of that family; if she can't carry a calf in the first couple of years, she may be the last of them. But I deliberately and heavily used the sons of that infected family, so I could extract the good of their genetics without the Neospora. I think the disease affects the sons' fertility in various ways as well.

Here there doesn't seem to be a lot of awareness of the problem or determination to do much about it, although it must be costing a great deal of production in some herds. Mind you, half the people I speak to don't know anything about BVD either.

 

[DavisBeefmasters]

BVD

IBR

Trauma -- heat stress, head butt by another cow

Foothill abortion = CA, OR, NV thing if your cows have never been exposed to the Sierra foothills and got bit by an infected tick

Infectious plant eaten?

Infection in the herd == as said above, Neospora, etc etc

In the Merck Vet Manual online = http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/rep...tion_in_large_animals/abortion_in_cattle.html

 

[Dega Moo]

DTN had a recent article about Ergot poisoning in areas that experienced a wet spring. The fungus grows/clings to the seed head of grasses and if eaten by cattle can cause a number of issues, including premature birth, reduced blood flow and loss of extremities.