Anybody have any issues with wooden tongue?

[Ky hills]

Our longhorn cow looked like she came through the winter hard, but seemed ok otherwise. Calved about 6 weeks ago and despite looking thin seemed healthy and took care of her calf and calf seemed to do good. A few weeks ago noticed her trying to get salt and just kind of sticking her tongue out and into the mineral. Looked odd to me, but at that time we were down with Covid and barely could do the basic feeding ( bottling the bottle calves, feeding weaned calves etc.) so I didn't try to get her up and get a vet. The other evening we caught the cows moving to the front and pushed them on through the gate ( still can't hold out very long doing much due to the stupid Covid and pneumonia)
The next morning both the cow and calf were in the barn lot so we weaned some older calves and got the longhorn and her calf in the barn. She is not an easy animal to get through a chute so we just took her and calf to the stockyards.
She won't bring anything at all, and we hate taking anything like that to market, but just didn't feel up to dealing with her.
At the yards they said that it was wooden tongue.
Is this a fairly common thing? Contagious?

 

[faster horses]

What is woody tongue? – Beef Cattle

Hope this helps.

 

[bird dog]

I have had two different episodes of it in about 15 years. The vet did a iodine treatment on the first one and she recovered. The second was was just two years ago and I correctly diagnosed the problem but the cow was pregnant and I remember the vet saying don't give Iodine to a preg cow. I took her in and got my diagnosis confirmed. The vet gave her a LA 300 treatment and I continued this for a week. She also recovered. I noticed both from the drooling mostly and you could tell they were not feeling well.

 

[TCRanch]

I've had 2 cases probably 11 & 9 years ago. Both were treated with sodium iodide, both recovered, both were bred, neither aborted. Sodium iodide may cause abortion and it may not. Discussed it with my vet and decided to go ahead because both cows were early in their pregnancy, and I hadn't pulled the bulls yet.

I have a friend that's treated 3 cows this year (so far). Two responded to LA300, one didn't, and she opted for sodium iodide. Finally pulled through but the cow looks bad.

 

[uplandnut]

What causes wooden tongue?

 

[wbvs58]

What causes wooden tongue?

Now that is a question that people could reply pulling your leg a bit.

A bacteria Actinobacillus lignieresii ( I know because I just looked it up) access to rough stalky forage can predispose abrading the tongue for the bacterium to invade.

Ken

 

[W.B.]

Early treatment is best. Not always curable and I was always told not to give sodium iodide to pregnant cows but had a bad case of wooden tongue and after three treatments she calved first cycle. Ended up shipping her after we weaned the calf as she still had slight symptoms.

 

[Lucky_P]

I saw two cases when I was in veterinary practice in southern middle TN 30+ years ago. Treated both with LA-200 and intravenous Sodium Iodide. At this date, IDK whether they recovered, or whether I ever heard from the owners again.