Dairy Beef cross Calfs seisures- Dead

[TPS]

had 2 - 2 week old calfs die this morning , heard them flopping around in the barn look like they were having seisures, 1 @ 4am & 1 @ 8am the first ate good the night before & looked perfectly healthy the second also looked fine & ate good very active the night before when I first saw him in the am he looked weak & began seisure before I could get to morning feeding, both @ university now to see what happened, Any ideas??? on milk replacer & water calfs were not housed together, Hypoglycemic?? Very frustrating! Looked Great the night before, Dead in the am anyone had similar experience?

Thanks

 

[Alice]

Were these sale barn calves?

Alice

 

[TPS]

from the farm, but 1st time I bought from them, Milking shorthorn/angus cross

 

[warpaint]

Purely a shot in the dark, but did the calves ever get colostrum?

 

[Alice]

Purely a shot in the dark, but did the calves ever get colostrum?

My next question, Warpaint. I've had calves do well up to about 2 weeks that I got from the sale barn (dairy calves), and crater. I figured no colostrum...but then it's easy to say that if you have no idea what it could be.

I did have a beef calf that someone had brought to me because he felt like that calf hadn't had enough to eat...mother's teats were huge. The calf was about 2 weeks old. I asked if the calf had been able to get colostrum from its mother when it was born. He had no idea.

I was tickled to death that the calf ate from a bottle when I got her. The next morning, she began convulsing. I tubed her electrolytes between convulsions...and thought that maybe we'd passed the worst of it. The calf quit convulsing and got up, and acted pretty good. Two hours later, the same thing...convulsions/thrashing. The calf died.

Lack of colostrum is an easy catch all when things go wrong...and I'd bet 9 times out of ten it's the right answer.

Alice

 

[TPS]

I honestly cant say if they got colustrom or not, But iam gonna contact them & see what & how they feed the first few days

 

[Alice]

I honestly cant say if they got colustrom or not, But iam gonna contact them & see what & how they feed the first few days

Not to sound like the voice of doom and gloom...but, unless you know these people to be filled with integrity, you can expect, "Oh, heck yeah! All of our calves get colostrum!"

The only reason I got the truth from the guy who brought me the calf was because he is a close friend of my brother's, and he's just an all around honest person who raises cattle as a sideline and likes to use the calves for roping practice...dumb as dirt when it comes to taking care of his animals, and I don't mean that he's malicious...he just doesn't know and depends on other's to help him out of situations that he gets himself into.

Alice

 

[TheBullLady]

I doubt it's from lack of colostrum. I've raised a lot of sale barn calves, and doubt many of them did get colostrum. Generally they get sick (scours, pnuemonia) quicker and more severly than others, but I've never had one with seizures.

It will be very interesting to see what the autopsy finds! Please keep us posted. I wonder if they didn't get into something.. maybe in the barn? Calves are notoriously nosy.

 

[Gary J Gale]

I think the Bull Lady is right on? Very young calves....usually its the BVD, Pneumonia that gets em, just like you described. Up and eating one minute, dead not much later. I really think the thrashing around you speak of is just a very sick, uncomfortable, hard time breathing calf in act of dying. Sounds like a few of my experiences.

 

[msscamp]

had 2 - 2 week old calfs die this morning , heard them flopping around in the barn look like they were having seisures, 1 @ 4am & 1 @ 8am the first ate good the night before & looked perfectly healthy the second also looked fine & ate good very active the night before when I first saw him in the am he looked weak & began seisure before I could get to morning feeding, both @ university now to see what happened, Any ideas??? on milk replacer & water calfs were not housed together, Hypoglycemic?? Very frustrating! Looked Great the night before, Dead in the am anyone had similar experience?

Thanks

No, I've never had this experience with this age calf. Seizures are usually a central nervous system thing, and at this age I'm thinking they were probably eating hay or maybe on pasture - any chance of toxic weeds in either one? What about their grain - any chance it could have gotten wet and molded? What type of pen were they in? If a corral, were pressure treated boards used? Railroad ties, perhaps? Please let us know what the autopsy shows, and I'm very sorry your calves died.

 

[TheBullLady]

I was thinking of lead poisoning. We had an incident of that years ago with a cow. Took her longer to die, but sounds like similar symptoms.

 

[born2run]

PI BVD?

 

[TPS]

university thought lead poisioning but iam sure they had no contact, I will post when I get the test results, I definatly think these calfs were having seisures, eye balls shaking, neck wrenching around to their back, legs kicking, totally uncontrolable spasims

once again I will post results hopefully tomorrow

thanks

 

[GMN]

I just had a holstein heifer die a few weeks ago, from seizures also, a friend told me he thought it ate something poisonous, but I never could figure it out, because there isn't really anything in the pen but grass. Same thing night before, ok, next morning, convulsing, died within an hour. Let us know what the test results are, I am very curious.

GMN

 

[milkmaid]

Scours can cause an electrolyte imbalance that results in seizures and death... been there done that; I'm careful not to neglect electrolytes in scours treatments now.

 

[D_skro]

could they have been biten my a snake?

 

[GMN]

Scours can cause an electrolyte imbalance that results in seizures and death... been there done that; I'm careful not to neglect electrolytes in scours treatments now.

My calf did not have scours, fine one day dead the next.

GMN