bag rot?

[Howdyjabo]

This last year we have been having problems treating sac infections on fresh cut bulls.I'm looseing animals to bag rot and that has never happened before.And I am seeing an increase in the % of animals effected.
The old treatments(sulfer boluses and or LA200) aren't working anymore-- and the infections are alot more invasive(swelled penis's and massive abdominal edema) and aggressive.

Our Vet switched us to treating with Baytril for three days. Its not 100% effective either- and it takes a long time to get them turned around.

Is anyone else having the same problems?
Are you having any better luck with a different treatment?

 

[Hippie Rancher]

well, the obvious questions are what are you doing differently? New equipment, people etc.. disinfecting between animals? exact technique?

The only calves I have ever had a problem with or lost to castrating problems have been when someone was out to "help" with branding. I do them ALL myself now and haven't had any problems.

I also cut about 1/3 to 1/2 the sac off, and if they are young pull the testicles. Older I cut but sort of scrape instead of a sharp cut so the bleeding stops fast.

 

[GMN]

One time we had a different vet come out to do castrations, his technique was questionable I thought at the time, and about a week after he castrated one of the bulls it was dead, I'm sure it was from the technique, and dirty tools he used. Only one we have ever lost, and will never use that Vet again!

GMN

 

[Hippie Rancher]

You use a vet to do cattle? Just curious what would the going rate for that be? I don't know anybody who uses a vet for cattle. I will pay for them to do horses and pets, but steers?

 

[D.R. Cattle]

Not a common problem. Must be staph lurking on your farm. Whacked several hundred bull calves this week with a knife or a tag cutter that lays in an iodine/water solution when not being used. No anitbiotics. Vaccinate, dehorn, fire the bleeders, swallowfork the ear and brand. Then turn em out to momma.

 

[Howdyjabo]

Nothing different- as far as cutting goes.
Cut 20,000+ in the last 20 yrs-- pretty sure Hubby is doing it right by now


Vet is a feedlot consultant.

 

[GMN]

You use a vet to do cattle? Just curious what would the going rate for that be? I don't know anybody who uses a vet for cattle. I will pay for them to do horses and pets, but steers?

We use to have the vet come out to castrate when we first started our Dairy about 13 years ago, at this time our Vet we use all the time, use to do Saturday schedule work, then he stopped , so we tried this other Vet, and had that one die. Now, we don't castrate any more bulls, we use to raise them up till 500lbs, now we sell them at 6 months of age (these are Holsteins--not beef) When I wean all my calves, I dehorn, vaccinate and worm at that time, so its easier this way for me, and saves money also. Back then it cost $3 a head to castrate.

GMN

 

[milkmaid]

We use to have the vet come out to castrate when we first started our Dairy about 13 years ago, at this time our Vet we use all the time, use to do Saturday schedule work, then he stopped , so we tried this other Vet, and had that one die. Now, we don't castrate any more bulls, we use to raise them up till 500lbs, now we sell them at 6 months of age (these are Holsteins--not beef) When I wean all my calves, I dehorn, vaccinate and worm at that time, so its easier this way for me, and saves money also. Back then it cost $3 a head to castrate.

GMN

I do all bull calves myself. Never ever had the vet out for castrations (or vaccinations, worming, or dehorning, for that matter.). Piece of cake to do it; boss showed me how on the first calf years ago and I've done it myself ever since then.

Karen, what other antibiotics have you tried? Nuflor? Nuflor-sulfa (like Sustain III) combination? Micotil? Tetradure is the new oxytet, at 300mg/mL - little higher concentration than the standard LA200. Tried that one? How about pennicillin? if you don't know exactly what's causing the infection (type of bacteria) then you'd want to go with a broad spectrum antibiotic.

Guess the first questions would really be how are the calves getting these infections? flies? pens need cleaned? calves under more stress than normal prior to castration? (that would lower their immune system, making them more succeptible to infection) Which calves seem more prone to infection? age? breed? temperament? time frame from unloading to castration and castration to signs of infection?

Not sure I have any answers for you, but perhaps if I ask enough questions you'll be able to come up with an answer yourself. ;-)

 

[Beefy]

a few more ideas to throw out-

**weather related?**

tetanus?

 

[Howdyjabo]

Keep throwing the ideas out ! But so far nothing fits

We're gonna tinker with another med protocol on the next one.
We used to have a .20% rate of infection- this last year it jumped to .5% and got severe when it appeared-which is what really bothers me.

We pre-con bulls (400-900lbs) off stockyard sales. So the fact that we get some cases is just part of the business.

I'm not seeing it enough to be easily tinkered with.I was hopeing that someone else out there has already seen the same change and figured it out for me

I'm gonna get a swab off the next bad one and see if I can find somewhere to have it cultured without it costing me an arm and a leg..
I have thought about learning how to culture things myself-- and then drop antibiotics in till I find the one that kills it
Don't know if home culturing is practical or not.

 

[Beefy]

we have more problems when it rains soon after we cut. no rain then?

 

[Howdyjabo]

We cut almost every other day- rain or not
Cases seem too random to blame the weather.
But we go to great pains to give them a well drained pasture to lie on afterwards.

 

[Texan]

The culturing sounds like the best plan to come up with a treatment that works. I'm wondering if the calves that you're having trouble with are fleshier than the others, or fleshier than in previous years? Around here, it always seemed that the infections were worse in the calves that had more fat deposits in the sack.

A few years ago we started spending a little more time with each calf and removing more of the fatty tissue from the sack. It takes another minute or so, but it sure has seemed to pay off with almost zero infections. Of course, I don't do nearly as many as you do, so the extra time might not be worth it for you.

Other than the time, the extra trimming does increase the bleeding a little bit. That's something that took me a while to get used to, but it's never caused a problem on calves up to six or seven weights. The extra bleeding just made me a little uneasy at first, but we spray them with iodine and fly spray and then pour them for a few more days fly protection and let 'em drip. :lol:

 

[Howdyjabo]

Thanks-- I'll have to watch that......
The last one was definetly fleshier-- I can't remember the other ones.

 

[milkmaid]

Karen - on the topic of culturing - I found this place about a week ago, haven't had time to check it out too thoroughly yet -
http://www.udderhealth.com/media2005.pdf

- they're the culture plates that my vet uses for culturing mastitis. I'm sure they'd work for other infections as well, however. Some are more for general culturing (gram positive and gram negative will grow) and others are more specialized (the mycoplasma plates).

IF I knew I could get a good growth off them without having an incubator-type thing (don't recall the exact name), I'd order them in a heartbeat. As it is, I know I can get some growth off ones that are already grown if I forget and leave them out on the counter ; sometimes even a slight growth in the 'fridge, but I'm not sure if it would work simply leaving them out on the counter. The incubator thing my vet has keeps the plates at a constant 32*C and a certain percentage of carbon dioxide to simulate the same environment as the inside of a cow. At $1.45/plate (vet charges $2/sample) I'm contemplating ordering in a few to see if I can get this to work for me. I think it will, but my guess is it will take longer (18 hours at the clinic -- probably translates to 24-36 on the counter), BUT, since my vet obviously isn't making much $$ off these cultures he's certainly not bending over backwards to get the results to me, and it would probably end up being the same amount of time if I was doing it all myself.

 

[Howdyjabo]

Thanks- for two pieces of information

One my local vet is ripping me off - last time I asked about culturing something they told me it would be $75 .

And a place to start experimenting with culturing my own .I'm really interested in the Mycoplasma plates-- I think we just got thru with a major outbreak. It would have been nice to know exactly which drugs I was pumping into them like water(over and over..........) was actually working .

Shame you aren't closer-- I think we are "know it all" wantabes and would get along real well

 

[milkmaid]

You're welcome, Karen.

FWIW - it would be ripping you off to charge $75/culture - it only cost me $25 to have my vet run an antibiotic sensitivity test, and that had to be taken to a lab 2 hours away.

Mycoplasma plates take a little longer to grow than the others, just so you know. Takes ~7 days in the incubator compared to 18 hours for the other types of plates. So 7 days in the incubator might translate to 10 days on the counter - by the time you knew whether the infection was or was not caused by Myco the animal would either be dead or have recovered. :lol: But at least you'd know what did or did not work, even if it took awhile to get that information.

The plates can be sort of hard to read at times - I've been learning from my vet but I still can't always tell what's what. The types of plates he uses are the blood agar and MacConkie - first for gram-positives like staph/strep that live on blood, second for gram-negatives like ecoli; the plate is lactose-something or other.

The only one I can tell with ease is staph aureus on the blood agar plate. Streps and staph environmentals sort of look the same to me... (cow on the right side shows a heavy staph environmental growth - cow on the left is clean)

but s. aureus eats right through - see the right side of the plate and how you can see through it? (sorry it's not very clear!)

I don't run samples on the MacConkie plates too often as we have more trouble with mastitis caused by staph/strep organisms.

But at least with culturing you have a better idea of what you're dealing with -- even if you can't always read exactly what's grown on the plate, you know if it's gram positive or gram negative and that does help with deciding what type of antibiotic to use.