Help! - My Calf Died

[Koeppel]

Hi,

I could use some help. We have ~10 holstien/angus mix calves that are from 7-10 months old. On Friday evening, 11/27/09, my daughter told me that one of the calves wasn't eating. On Saturday she looked worse so we isolated her and gave her some antibiotics and propylene glycol. By Sunday, she would not get up and we were dosing her with a water/glucose mixture several times a day and were still giving antibiotics. By Monday morning she was dead.

She had developed scours over the weekend and we noticed some blood in the stools. We sent a stool sample to the vet on Monday, but don't expect results until perhaps Thursday. In the mean time, we're wondering what to do with the rest of the herd. Is there any preventive maitenance that we can begin now to help protect them? Thursday seems so far away and we're not even sure that the test results will tell us what killed her.

Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks,

Todd

 

[Lucky_P]

Bloody stool in that age calf - I'd be thinking coccidiosis or salmonellosis, though BVD-Mucosal Disease is a possibility.
Results from a routine fecal examination for coccidia/parasite ovae ought to be available inside of 24 hours - if it's coccidiosis, then you'd need to check with your vet for their recommendations on either adding Corid(amprolium) to the drinking water, or feeding a ration containing a coccidiostat, like Deccox, Bovatec or Rumensin.
Bacterial culture/sensitivity results may well take 'til Thursday.

Unfortunately, a stool sample is not a useful sample for BVD testing; rotavirus/coronavirus can be detected in feces, but they're unlikely to be the cause of significant disease in that age calf.

 

[Koeppel]

Thanks Lucky,

Should I be able to just call the vet and ask for the results of the fecal examination for coccidia/parasite ovae? It would be good for us to get that answer as soon as possible.

 

[Koeppel]

Hi,

I could use some help. We have ~10 holstien/angus mix calves that are from 7-10 months old. On Friday evening, 11/27/09, my daughter told me that one of the calves wasn't eating. On Saturday she looked worse so we isolated her and gave her some antibiotics and propylene glycol. By Sunday, she would not get up and we were dosing her with a water/glucose mixture several times a day and were still giving antibiotics. By Monday morning she was dead.

She had developed scours over the weekend and we noticed some blood in the stools. We sent a stool sample to the vet on Monday, but don't expect results until perhaps Thursday. In the mean time, we're wondering what to do with the rest of the herd. Is there any preventive maitenance that we can begin now to help protect them? Thursday seems so far away and we're not even sure that the test results will tell us what killed her.

Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks,

Todd

As an additional note, the calf never ran a temperature all weekend. Temp was around 101.8F.

 

[DavisBeefmasters]

By any chance, have the calves been together for a long time? or were they establishing dominance and have been head butting each other...

...could have taken a side shot from another calf with internal bleeding... a fellow breeder put bulls in neighboring pens only seperated by barb wire and they battled at the fence line and wound up with one dead bull from a side shot by the other bull

...I say this because I'm assuming none of the other calves have scours, are lethargic, or other similar symptoms to the calf you treated.

Please keep us posted with the vet results.

 

[dun]

If all the calves were together get the others into an area that this calf wouldn;t have exposed any disease to. If you have hard surfaces, mix a 10% bleach to water and spray down all hard surfaces until it runs off.

 

[Lucky_P]

koeppel,
Yes, if the vet or their techs did the fecal exam 'in-house' they should have had those results available that day, or the next, at the latest. If they sent it out to the state diagnostic lab, those results should be available within 24 hours(or less) of them receiving the sample; culture and antimicrobial sensitivity results would take 3-5 days to be completed.
If it is coccidiosis, you probably need to treat all the calves in this group - overall, the biggest economic impact from coccidiosis is NOT in the calves that die or develop clinical disease, but in the decreased performance in the calves that are infected, but don't have sufficient intestinal damage to show signs of scours. Even though they're not noticeably sick, there's enough damage done to the intestinal mucosa that they just don't grow/perform up to their genetic potential.
BVD is still a distinct possibility, and if you have other calves that become sick, you should have your vet collect appropriate samples for diagnosis(blood sample, ear notch, etc.).

 

[Lucky_P]

tncattle,
Not saying it doesn't, but It SHOULDN'T take that long - Johne's fecal culture results, yes(they might take 4 months to finalize), but not routine diagnostic workups.
I was in practice in your area 20 yrs ago, and used the TN lab for most diagnostics we couldn't do in-house, but I did have clients who'd drive right past the lab in Nashville to bring samples up here to the lab in KY. I hardly know anyone at CE Kord anymore, so I can't comment on their current level of service.
I'm not saying we're better, but being an old practitioner and a beef producer myself, I make sure MY staff gets reliable diagnostic results out the door and back to the vet and producer as quickly as possible.