If fescue toxicity is the problem there will be very little if any bleeding. Basicly the extremity of the yail falls of because of the lack of blood circulation to the tail. Endophyte infected fescue is toxic to varying degrees depending on the part of the growth cycle it is in. Some animals can handle the toxicity with very little ill effect other then poorer gain or milk production then would be expected. Others are very sensitive to it, i.e. low tolerence to the endophyte. It's these animals that are most at risk to develop fescue foot, tails falling off, hoofs falling off, etc. There are hundreds of internet sites that can give you a much better explanation and effects then I can. One herd near us bought 70 plus cows from NE. Within a month, tails started falling off, they only ended up with maybe a dozen or less cows from that purchase that are still in the herd after only a couple of years. In our fescue pastures we interseeded clover to dilute the endophyte, it helped enough that our weaning weights went up 100 lbs nearly across the board.
dunmovin farms
> dunmuvin Thankyou for your
> response.One more question.If this
> is the problem would the ends of
> their half tails bleed.Its not
> cold here so it cant be that they
> froze.What did you mean by low
> tolerance.
