Butcher or not to butcher?

[ninin]

Hi everyone, I am new to this place and somewhat new to the cattle world as well.

I have a question, If a calf that weights about 180 to 200 pounds was given 4 cc's of tylan 200 on saturday afternoon can we butcher him to eat or to feed the dogs??

Allow me to explain a little, we have 4 holstein bull calves and 2 of them have a pneumonia and we gave them tylan 200, but my hubby thought that it would be a good idea to give the others as well so they don't get sick. We found him on the floor not wanting to get up. We helped him up and spent his Sunday walking around like he was in pain. In the evening when we went to check on all of them as we do every day before we called it a day... he was on the floor again so my hubby got him up and put him inside the barn. He was eating, drinking and pooping well yesterday and during the night. (we have cameras on our barn and calves paddock). Today, I left for a few hours to town to run errands and when I got back he was dead.

We had another calf that passed away a few months ago that ignorant as we were we didn't know that they guy sold us a sick calf... anyways we saw this calf pass away on our hands the way he looked it was different from this one. This calf died and looked like he was still sleep, I examined his body and found a huge chunk of chewed up hay stuck on his mouth. I got it out and it kept going all the way down to as far as my small hand could reach... I am not sure why he died but I assume that maybe of my horse hurt him really bad, she is kind of an a**h0le when it comes to sharing hay, hence the having them apart but my hubby accidentally left the calves paddock gate open and I found them in there in the morning.

Well after telling you my boring life story, after giving him tylan only once can we eat him or feed him to our chickens or dogs?

Also, any input of what I could of done to save him? Well other than close the freaking gate to the paddock next time, if that was even the reason why he died :/

Thank you in advance for all your help!

 

[wbvs58]

Well I wouldn't eat him myself but there should be no reason why you couldn't cut him up for the dogs.

Ken

 

[Supa Dexta]

180lb Holstein wont have much eating on it, its unknown why it died, and it has drugs in it.

Dogs sure, but I wouldnt touch it. I also wouldnt want to teach the dogs that calves are where food comes from, so be smart about butchering it.

 

[Lucky_P]

21 day slaughter withdrawal time for ruminating cattle; no established withdrawal time for pre-ruminant cattle(category which your calf likely falls into).
Agree, there's not much edible meat on one that size. Guess if it was a matter of life or death, I'd eat it, but otherwise... no... and I'm not sure I'd bother butchering it to feed the dogs.

 

[branguscowgirl]

I wouldn't eat it nor feed it to anything else. For heavens sake, you don't even know what it truely died from! :yuck:

 

[piedmontese]

They will all die if u keep treating pneumonia with Tylan 50.

 

[dun]

Guess if it was a matter of life or death, I'd eat it, but otherwise... no... and I'm not sure I'd bother butchering it to feed the dogs.

Leave it for the coyotes.

 

[branguscowgirl]

I don't think that I would be chumming the coyotes either Dun.
Pied is right. The over the counter antibiotics won't do much good for Pneumonia. Do you have a vet?

 

[ninin]

Thank you all for the advise! I did butcher him and have being feeding it to the dogs in small portions. I got more meet I really thought I was going to get. Still not worth losing the calf for the meat I was able to take from him. In the other hand it was educative for my kids. I homeschool my 2 girls. We took this experience to learn about the anatomy of a bull and so on. They decided to take the fur and see if they could make a wall decoration so they are working on that. Little things made it seem like it wasn't such a waste but...

I don't have a vet yet. I am new to this area, after 7 years in Germany. The only vet I found able to come to my land was going to charge $400 JUST TO COME AND SEE HIM.... seriously??? didn't include meds or treatment... too much money, didn't think it was worth spending that for a holstein calf. What will you recommend for pneumonia? All I have is Tylan 200 and penicillin g at this moment.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

You need something prescription from your vet for Pneumonia like Nuflor, Baytril 100, etc.

 

[piedmontese]

That's ridiculous!!! $400!!! Eff that!!! Sounds like a small animal city vet.Sure hope u can find a better vet to help u out. I have had good luck with Draxxin and Banamine. Resflor gold is good too but requires a retreat after 2 days while I rarely need to retreat with Draxxin not to mention it also requires a bigger dosage.

 

[skyhightree1]

They will all die if u keep treating pneumonia with Tylan 50.

If you aren't going to get good drugs you may want to leave those calves alone because the results will not be good without it.

To answer your original question I would have done neither but burnt it up.

 

[djinwa]

I would suggest spending more time and money studying the cause of disease, and trying to prevent it, rather than throwing drugs at the problem. Many think cattle are born with a drug deficiency, but if raised normally, don't require them.

For example, where are the calves coming from? How old are they at purchase? What is their colostrum program? What is their sanitation program? Are they co-mingling different ages?

Stress lowers immunity, so how much are they stressed? Transported long distances? Going hungry when transporting?

What is your sanitation program? Do you have calves together or separated? What is your nutrition program?

That should give you plenty of homework for homeschooling. Start googling.

 

[skyhightree1]

I would suggest spending more time and money studying the cause of disease, and trying to prevent it, rather than throwing drugs at the problem. Many think cattle are born with a drug deficiency, but if raised normally, don't require them.
.

Raised normal in my small brain way of thinking is by the cow. You are correct when raised in normal manner they typically do not need drugs. However, in this case they do and need good ones.