A
Anonymous
Good morning all,
Quick question about an Angus bull calf I have. 17 days old, about 85 lbs. This bull had a very hard delivery because of an extremely flexed pastern and when I found him about an hour after birth,he was cleaned off, but too tired to even move. I got at least a qt. of colostrum down him from momma right away and continued to do this every 2 hours for 24 hours. At that time he still was not standing and nursing and I noticed his nose skinned up/bloody looking and crusty lesions on mouth, ears and eyelids. Called my vet and he said to start him on Baytril 1.5cc, LA 200 10cc (to treat pastern also) and Banamine 1 cc once a day as he said he had pneumonia.
We have only 2 large animal vets within 2 hours here and they prefer their small animal practice for obvious reasons so to this date my usual vet has continued to instruct me as to medication and has not seen the calf. Too busy!
I did call a second vet in last Wednesday and he looked at the calf without even taking his temp or looking closely at him and suggested I give him Nolvasan for the lesions. Said the nose abrasions looked like "Red Nose" but said the calf couldn't have been born with it.
It has been 11 days now that I have been treating this calf and he really is no better. His temp is still fluctuating around 103.0, breathing still rapid/shallow.
He has no diarrhea, no coughing, no nasal discharge, eats very well and vigorously from momma and tries to walk and hop but has trouble because of pastern that is splinted.
My vet believes he has pneumonia; I on the other hand am not convinced and don't understand these lesions and why they haven't gone away, and the nose is still raw.
I am extremely frustrated not only with the vets, but at the meds that don't appear to be working. I talked to a dairy friend yesterday and he said he would get me a bottle of Nufluor from his vet (who only does dairy cattle); said it has worked miracles for him and several other dairymen.
I guess my question to you after all this is: could this calf have BVD at birth? The mother was not vaccinated as I just bought her and she was pregnant. Will Nufluor work on a calf this age? Any other ideas or thoughts would be appreciated.
Quick question about an Angus bull calf I have. 17 days old, about 85 lbs. This bull had a very hard delivery because of an extremely flexed pastern and when I found him about an hour after birth,he was cleaned off, but too tired to even move. I got at least a qt. of colostrum down him from momma right away and continued to do this every 2 hours for 24 hours. At that time he still was not standing and nursing and I noticed his nose skinned up/bloody looking and crusty lesions on mouth, ears and eyelids. Called my vet and he said to start him on Baytril 1.5cc, LA 200 10cc (to treat pastern also) and Banamine 1 cc once a day as he said he had pneumonia.
We have only 2 large animal vets within 2 hours here and they prefer their small animal practice for obvious reasons so to this date my usual vet has continued to instruct me as to medication and has not seen the calf. Too busy!
I did call a second vet in last Wednesday and he looked at the calf without even taking his temp or looking closely at him and suggested I give him Nolvasan for the lesions. Said the nose abrasions looked like "Red Nose" but said the calf couldn't have been born with it.
It has been 11 days now that I have been treating this calf and he really is no better. His temp is still fluctuating around 103.0, breathing still rapid/shallow.
He has no diarrhea, no coughing, no nasal discharge, eats very well and vigorously from momma and tries to walk and hop but has trouble because of pastern that is splinted.
My vet believes he has pneumonia; I on the other hand am not convinced and don't understand these lesions and why they haven't gone away, and the nose is still raw.
I am extremely frustrated not only with the vets, but at the meds that don't appear to be working. I talked to a dairy friend yesterday and he said he would get me a bottle of Nufluor from his vet (who only does dairy cattle); said it has worked miracles for him and several other dairymen.
I guess my question to you after all this is: could this calf have BVD at birth? The mother was not vaccinated as I just bought her and she was pregnant. Will Nufluor work on a calf this age? Any other ideas or thoughts would be appreciated.
