cows and heifers with some hair loss on legs, ideas?

[dun]

Noticed a little sign of mites just today. Will show up from time to time. Have experienced more ringworm this past winter than am used to also.

fitz

Mites or lice?

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

Red Bull Breeder

Your statement "Only thing SRbeefs cows need is green grass and warm weather" is based on what? I would have agreed if that is lice but it is IMO mange!

About 50 years of being around cattle agmantoo.

 

[fitz]

Noticed a little sign of mites just today. Will show up from time to time. Have experienced more ringworm this past winter than am used to also.

fitz

Mites or lice?

Just the way it looked I thought mange. The group I noticed it in will be up to work prior to breeding. If it looks worse before then I'll give them an early pour. The three I saw it on are heavy bred. Hope there's no other reason to have them up before then.

fitz

 

[kenny thomas]

SRbeef, I agree with all your statements and will add some of my own.
OzDroughtmaster, My mineral program is based on tests done by Virginia Tech by blood testing cows, analizing both soil and forage samples and developing a mineral specifically for this area. I think the mineral program is correct.
I think the reason I only had two cases is my cows have been grazing for the last 6 weeks with only a roll of hay unrolled on the snowy days so they were not in close contact with each other. We have a lot of coyotes so maybe that is where it came from.
Anyway, I worked them all today and also moved them onto new pasture. Also unrolled some hay and they ate a little and went back to grazing. We will see in a week or so if they are doing better.

 

[SRBeef]

I have a little more time now. i would ask you a question, What have you learned and how will you change your management to reduce the risk of the same thing happening next year. The possible causes to my mind is not the mange. It is the depleted imune response of your herd. There are two things to consider. The first is to have a close look at your breeding programme, this should be easy considering these are registered cattle. Close breeding will cause depleted imune response and make your cattle highly suseptable to a stress that would othrewise be handled by the imune system. The other thing to look at is TRACE MINERALS as I sugested earlier. Defficiency in some Trace Minerals will also predispose your cattle to imune depletion. So now you have treated the symptom I would be looking at these things with a view to preventing the problem in the future. I have written this in an effort to try and help, I do not intend to be agressive or arrogant and if I appear to be so then I have been interpreted wrongly. With love...OZ.

Mr. Oz,

I appreciate you taking the time to respond further.

I have been accused on this board and elsewhere of pampering my cattle.

On your above points, most of mine are not registered and come from a wide variety of sources. The affected cow-heifer group are not closely bred in any way other than a few daughters and cows in it. They have excellent immune response.

My cattle have an excellent/expensive mineral tub out at all times. The chances of them having a mineral deficiency are near zero. Here is the ingredient list on the mineral tub I have used for several years: http://www.crystalyx.com/beef/pdfs/Mineral-lyx.pdf

I have read books where folks with lots of good ideas rely on "Basic H" etc for a dewormer and this same person recently was vehemently against animal ID and rfid programs etc. While I believe in a "natural" approach to raising cattle, I think there is a time to use an appropriate level of technology and medicine to make life better. There are lots of examples through history of the benefits of medicine when used properly.

I am in favor of and work hard to produce healthy, humanely raised, hormone and antibiotic-free (unless needed) beef. I am close to having a closed herd although I did buy a few heifers from breeders last fall and a bull last summer.

However animals still sometimes get sick. There are diseases that can be brought in by birds or in this particular case probably coyotes or deer. I have a preventive medicine program which has worked very well. My cattle are regularly vaccinated against preventable diseases that my vet feels are or could be a factor in our area.

As in people, there are just times however when things come up and it is time to use some of the benefits of modern medicine. The task of a manager is to be able to decide when those times are.

We need to look at the potential cost and benefits of treating or not treating.

In the case of mange, which my cows had according to my vet who has been doing this for 40 years, it is fortunately usually easy (depending on type and extent) and relatively inexpensive to treat if caught early.

On the other side of the coin depending on which type of mange it is it can be devastating if let go untreated.

Weighing these two possibilities I choose to treat.

According to my vet: Mange is caused by mites that come in from somewhere and can only live on an untreated host animal. That host can be alive or dead. Mange is not a result of animal immunity nor mineral deficiency, it is the result of a mite coming in from somewhere.

If you treat one cow in a herd the rest probably already have a few mites on and the infestation continues. If you treat the whole cow herd, the mites have no host to transfer to and live on so they die.

As Knersie pointed out, it is also much more practical to treat my cowherd before they start calving and the calves become potential hosts...so I treated quickly since calving can start about any day now. It is also Knersie's and my vet's opinion that the treatment has no effect on the calves being carried.

I thank you for your replies and thoughts. I do feel that while cow and herd health factors you mention are important, stuff still happens with cattle as it does with people.

We all know clean living healthy people that still sometimes get sick, have heart attacks, cancer, etc. Stuff happens. And when it does I believe in using the benefits of modern medicine.

So I guess I am a middle ground person. I am all for healthy, clean cattle, rotationally grazed on grass as much as possible with a good genetic base and a very good mineral program raised in a "natural" way with out excessive or unnecessary medication. But I am still going to use modern medicine to try to keep them that way and to treat the occasional thing that comes up like this mange.

all the best to you -

Jim

 

[KNERSIE]

Oz, if you think Jim's cattle has depleted immune system you don't want to see how I run mine and how cattle look after a two years of drought with runaway fires destroying all the hay.