downer cows

[Lakercom]

We've got two downer cows in the barn getting room service and there is no such thing as Depends for cows! We are two-thirds through calving in our 150-cow herd and we've had a problem with four downers so far:

Downer cows in order:

1. Lost her large calf after we pulled it. We left her too long but it was not a hard pull. The calf gave two breaths and died. Mother could not get up and walk for about twelve hours. I did get her to stand with some assistance by pulling her up by the tail but she would only take a step or two and then collapse with no strength in her back legs. The next day she was able to walk but she staggered for a few days and probably took a week to regain her strength.

2. Lost her large calf due to sac over face. Since the labour immobilized her it is understandable she could not lick the calf to help remove the sac. She could not get up for six days and then presto, up and around one day and back to normal within a few more days. She delivered without assistance at night so we never got a good reading on the degree of difficulty. "We" (brother) did turn her every day after we got her in the barn. No strength in back legs again. I do realize about the nerve damage that sometimes occurs during delivery but the plot thickens on the next two.

3. Downer cow again last Saturday, but not calving this time. Like #2, we brought her into the barn in the bucket of the tractor loader. She had a scrape on her foot and we thought that she cut it so we treated it but it was only a surface scrape. She has no strength in back legs, common to all four cows. This cow went into labour, while down, on Thursday. She was up against the wall with her shoulder and went several (many?) hours before we got to her. The calf was dead and upside down in the womb with legs back.... understandable, considering her handicap. "Bro" did a marvelous job. I assisted. We lifted her back end with the loader (got gravity on our side as she would not let us push her calf inwards very far) and got the front legs out and delivered her with a hard pull, still with the calf upside down. Immediately the cow went to eating and drinking and pooping again with the usual assistance of the busboy (me). Cow is still down after a week (in total).

4. Two days later, on Monday, another downer cow. Same thing ..... not in labour but with her back legs immobilized. We are not optimistic of her chances of getting a live calf unless she recovers in time. My brother turns the cows every day using the tractor loader.

We had a similiar problem with downer cows at calving in 2001. Like now, it usually started with delivery, some calves alive, some dead. Most of us think it is the feed ...... silage. Like this year, we fed a considerable amount of silage in 2001.

My bro doesn't agree. He thinks the first two got it from a pinched nerve during labour and the pregnant two (#3, #4) got it from slipping on the ice. He could be right.

A neighbour that puts up a fair bit of silage says he has never had a problem with silage causing this type of thing. He is convinced his silage once caused a problem with abortions in his herd, but he attributes it to goose poop, but that is not applicable here.

We are diligent about providing the herd with mineral. My Dad gives them a steady supply of loose mineral ("the expensive stuff), alternating each bag with normal (blue) salt. We feed mostly hay with a bale buster on the ground. The calving yard gets fairly dirty but this year is actually better than most as we have had lots of snow so we are always trying to get the cleanest ground by feeding on the edges of the snow. Due to the wet summer last year, we put up most of our oats as round bale silage in a covered stack. We did not get the stack covered immediately so there is some spoilage. We also put up some high moisture barley (thrashed) in a covered pit (silage). We fed that for two months starting at Christmas and then onto the (oat) silage bales for the last six weeks but we try not to feed more than 40% silage and the rest in hay at any time. In 2001, we had a similiar problem with downer cows. That year, our silage had some canola in it but there is no canola in our silage this year. I think we fed the last of the silage today so that may help.

Anyway, if you have persevered through this book, bravo, any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[rockridgecattle]

Get your feed tested for poisons and nutrition

Get your cattle tested for mineral deficency
Feed mineral 24/7/365
mix salt in the mineral or provide separate feeder for the salt, but mineral at all times
we had a simillar problem in 2003 with the drought. the older cows had problems, tough summer and tough winter feeding. Had bought alot of straw to feed and there was little nutritional value, but we should have changed our mineral to the more calcium or was it more phosphorus...to long ago

Talk to your vet and call the ag office to talk to their nutritionist

Assist your cows sooner and keep on hand dex and oxytocin. Dex for the pinch nerve and pain and Oxytocin to help in the recovery from a large hard birth

For the calf that took two breathe and died....mouth to mouth...seriously...dopham 2cc under the tongue..not injected, 2 or 3 cc of epinephrine

now the dirty calving area

Scours and navel ill are management issues and can be atributed to lack of colostrum, timely injestion of colostrum, stress full birth and dirty areas. To minimize these issues and the drug costs associated with it...think on how to improve. Maybe even a separate area to calve cows from the winter feeding area. cows go into the calving area 2 weeks prior. Cow calf pairs get their own area away from the herd. It took us a few years to get it in place, but after we did we noticed a big difference.
Second, if your herd increased but the area to calve out did not, gets dirty fast, more chance to stress the immune system of the cow and the calf. A calf is born with zero, nadda, nothing for immunity. There is nothing passed on from the dam to the calf during gestation. It all comes from colostrum.

Good luck

RR
downers who do not get up, be sure to test for BSE, get $75.00 for it

 

[randiliana]

First off, have you called your vet? With this many downer cows, I would sure want his input!!

I am inclined to agree with your brother on the first 2, and especially on the second one. A long birth, even if it does not result in an extremely hard pull, can pinch the nerve, and cause a downer cow. Especially if the calf is fairly large.

As for the second 2, how good/poor condition are they in? Is it possible, that they are putting more energy into growing their calves, that what they are getting? Did they show signs of being weak before they went down?

From what you say you are feeding, it seems unlikely, but an older cow, with a really big calf, or twins can have this problem. If you think this is the case, increase the energy in their ration (just the ones that are down or weak).

I couldn't say whether it could be the silage or not, as we have never fed silage. But, I suppose it could be possible. Hopefully, someone else will chime in....

 

[bigbull338]

1 your having way to meny down cows for 150hd.2 sounds like you have a bull throwing big calves.3your not getting there soon enough to pull the calves.4 cows 1 an 2 was paralized from calving.because of the big calves.5 cows 3 an 4 couldve slipped an hurt themselves.5 you have a loader.so id get a set of hipplifters an start lifting the downers 2 or 3 times a day.6 you could lose 10% of your herd or more this year due to downers.7 call your vet.

 

[jcarkie]

are these older cows 10+ ? they do fine until complications then they don't have strength to get up. the winter is hard on them.

 

[funky 4-Her]

Could it be a calcium defficency???
It sounds like milk fever that you get with milk cows.

 

[Lakercom]

are these older cows 10+ ? they do fine until complications then they don't have strength to get up. the winter is hard on them.

The cows are around 10 years. We don't know precisely. With all the ear tags we have lost (a discussion for another day), my Mom lost track. The downer cow that went into labour (#3), and her dead calf was pulled , died on Sunday. We have a call in for a vet to come and take a sample of the brain and thus get the rebate.

I will ask about the calcium deficiency, although as noted earlier, we do supply the cow with mineral.

 

[rockridgecattle]

Just cause you supply with mineral doe not mean that they can not get defficient in one or more minerals. It depends on the food you are feeding. If that food is high in another mineral it might inhibit the absorbtion of calcium. In older cows that have had a hard winter to deal with they might not have absorbed enough.
We used a good mineral, (co-op brand) and the cows ate like crazy, the mineral was out 24/7/365. In about 6 months they were cleaning up the pasture on fence posts. We could not replace them fast enough. One day we got a brain wave and thought to talk to a nutritionist about this issue. Recommended we switch brands. Within a month the posts were no longer the mineral of choice.
Some feeds require the mineral to change be it more calcium or more phosphorus. So instead of 1:1 it might need to be 2:1 or 1:2 mineral to work with the feed you are using.

 

[milkmaid]

I will ask about the calcium deficiency, although as noted earlier, we do supply the cow with mineral.

Ditto to what RR said -- also note that mineral isn't always sufficient in this case -- if a cow goes off feed at calving and has the sudden demand on her body for calcium (milk), she has no calcium input and a high calcium output -- just not a good situation any way you look at it. Easily treatable with a calcium IV. Not too common in beef cows but it's a common occurance in dairy cows.

Have a talk with your vet -- keep us updated.

 

[DaletheDairyFarmer]

i agree with the idea of calcium/ potassium imbalance. oat hay or haylage will be higher in Ca than grass/legume, could be throwing them into milk fever/ketosis before they ever calve. also ice could be a problem. vet could run a blood sample on downers and some still springing and tell if minerals are the out of whack. possibly the mineral you feed isn't near what you actually need but that will be determined by the blood test. we had this problem about 12 years ago changed dry cow program been pretty much good ever since.

 

[Lakercom]

We lost downer cow #4 last night. She had been down for 11 days and we were considering shooting her anyhow. The good news is that we have not had any new downers.

A vet, the government tester guy (who is coming early next week to take a brain sample and thus qualify us for the government rebates), said it might be a sciatic nerve problem. I once had a sciatic nerve attack from playing hockey and I could not walk for three weeks. I wonder if it is as common in cows. I realize they are vertebrates, like humans, but they have four legs instead of two. For the first week or so after my "injury" I had to keep one leg fairly straight to minimize the pain. The hockey incident involved simply sipping on the ice, I never even fell down. How inglorious. The pain never hit me for several hours and then, WOW, did it hurt.

The last two downer cows, which went down prior to labour had trouble staying in a sitting position after the incident. Number 4 may have died from bloat as she was flat out on her side. This supports the sciatic nerve theory. She could not stay upright on her own. If the cows were not spread eagle my brother had to support them with a rope suspended from the roof beam. He used a come-along to maintain proper tension on the ropes (or sling straps) but, alas, it did not work last night, as the rope slipped out of the hook. When he turned (moved) her last night she was initially on her side without support and her thigh muscle had the tremors.

You can remind me again if you want that we should rely more on a vet, but to repeat our situation, we are not in cattle country, and no vet does "house calls". We are too busy to take a cow in. I was hoping to get a blood sample to a vet but it did not happen. We are not good at phoning the vet.

I was giving this last downer cow mineral in her grain every day. I realized, with the board's helpful advice, that it is not good to cutoff salt and/or mineral to a downer cow that is possibly suffering from a mineral deficiency. It is easy to forget to keep mineral available to a cow that is getting room service.

Anyway, we tried. This week we have lost three calves to sudden and mysterious cause(s?). They were anywhere from 5 days - 3 weeks old and showed up dead within a half day without warning. A couple could have received a mechanical injury i.e. rolled on or stepped on, but they were not crowded. The youngest was weak form birth and got colostrum late. Its mother rejected this calf because two cows calved close by to each other in the middle of the night and both claimed one calf. The checker should have segregated them immediately. I am the barn guy and nobody told me about them. It was never discovered until a couple of days later when I had a day off ......... and so it goes. I don't expect these mysterious calf losses are related to the downer cow problem but you never know.