Joint Ill ? Confused

[Kimberly]

Need others ideas, I raise beefmaster cattle on pasture. I had to pull a bullcalf for the first time about 5 weeks ago. It was the moms first calf and he was about 70 lbs. It was not easy getting him out and hard on her. They both came thru, the mom was down to long and once I got her up she headed staright of to find water and never looked back. About 6 hrs later I got some help and got the mom up to the working pen area. We put her in a shut and milked her to get all we could it was only about a pint. The bull calf still was not able to stand, I think it was from all the pulling on his front legs to get him out. We gave him what she had and then more of the replacement powder. He was also given a 7 day shot for any infection. It took about 4 days before we had him truly standing on his own. But even then he favored his right front hawk, bending it under to the joint. He was given a 2nd shot seven days later at 2 weeks age. I decided to splint up the lower front hawk. It worked he was then walking and running like he should. I kept it on for a week, once I removed it his foot was working perfect. He was running pasture and playing with the heard.This lasted only about 6 days and he was back to bending it under again at the first joint. Brought him back in to barn area tried the splint again. Did'nt work he went to bending at the knee joint and dropping the shoulder draging the leg.By this time he is going on 4 weeks of age keep in mind he has never had fever, he has never showed any signs of infection fever or swelling of joint area, he has never lost his willingness to eat ,nevered scoured and has put on as of today no less than 40 pounds total weight about 115 lbs at 5 weeks of age. The vet checked and only guess maybe Joint ill? So has been treated with 1cc pain med,1cc pen and vit A,B,D. and splinted on the lower leg.So far he is holding the shoulder back up, putting weight back on the leg and walk around. But he is still not straighting it up all the way and when I took the splint off the lower hawk, hoof area he is still wanting to flex the hoof back and rest on the joint. So I put the splint back on.This at least allows him to get around with out draging the skin off the joint and causing more problems. The splint is just under the knee joint and still allows the hoof to be open touching the ground. Help! Is this Joint ill or what is going on?

 

[Beefy]

well... your average beefmaster heifer should be able to deliver a 70lb calf with no problems and should milk better than that so something sounds a little screwy already. the calf sounds like he was knuckled under. for what reason? the hard pulling? cramped in a super tiny heifer? deficiency of some sort? i have never seen a knuckled under calf revert once he gets really straightened out. the time he reverted sounds like it was about the same time the "infection meds" were wearing off. its not uncommon for pulled calves to develop some sort of joint ill from all the stress and areas calves are pulled arent the most sanitary places either a lot of times. so i'm also leaning toward joint ill.

 

[rockridgecattle]

Did this calf have navel ill at one time?
We had a similar experience last year. He got navel ill real bad and it got into the joints. No amount of treating it helped. After the medication wore off he went back to having trouble walking and running. We tried everything. We had cleared up the navel ill but by then the damage had be done. Spent alot of money on medication and vet calls (2). In the end it was best to take care of the calf as humanely as possible...if you get my drift.
Does he stay well enough to pass the withdrawl time?
You now have choice of treating more with little or no results or relapses costing more $ or a humane course of treatment.

 

[Kimberly]

The moma was small compared to most of the herd. His navel dried up just as you would expect it to. But when I first took him to the vet about his leg, the vet scrached up on the navel area and said it looked like there was a small amount of dried infection there. But he felt it was not enough to be sure. But not able to find anything else wrong started treating for Joint Ill. His front joints were a little puffy the first 2 days after pulling him. But no more than you would expect due to pulling. This evening when i checked on him I messed with his leg just lightly extending it forward to stretch out the nerves and tendons. I noticed that the knee pops you can hear it and feel it as I bend it and extend it out. should their joints pop?He was pulled with a soft cotton rope wraped around this front hawks but it took a lot of hard pulling. I wish I could better answer form my vets but there really confused. Maybe I should have his leg x rayed, not that I am sure what that would show?

 

[rockridgecattle]

hello kimberly, sit back for a bit cause this will take a bit to write. I don't know much about pnemonia, or tmuch about BVB and IBR except you must vaccinate or some of these other problems stated on this web site. But scours, and navel ill these we have had problems with so this is what i know.
Navel ill 101.
firstly it;s a management issue I can say this cause we have had alot to do with navel ill these past two years. So no dig at you or your farm.
Second, a hard pull, backwards calf, dirty equipment, dirty us when checking inside the cow, dirty contaminated ground, to long of an abilical cord, a non existant ambilical cord, lack of colostrum...
...all or one of these present can contribute to navel ill.
Third the navel is a direct link to the liver and the liver is a direct link to everything else. the liver is the body's filter. When navel ill is left untreated no matter how severe or minor the infection is it gets to the liver and then to the rest of the body settling in the joints.
fourth navel is very very hard to treat. It requires dedication and strong drugs like nufor and an anti inflamatory like anafin. We use to use predef but anafin is better, There are others out there but i do not know their names.
Even with nuflor the fight is hard and once it gets to the joints even harder.
you may clear up the navel ill or not realize you have it and it 'cleared' on it's own but once it has reached the joints with no treatment the damage as been done.

So let's recap what you have said
1 the vet says it looks like it might have had navel ill.
2.he is 5 weeks old
3. treated and responded to treatment then relapsed
4. he is in pain...pencillin is not enough. Needs something to get deep into the tissue like nuflor.

now the math.
how much have you spent already. Drugs, needles, vet call, hay if you have to feed him.
if he is not good enough for the sale barn what then?
if he can't make it past the withdrawl time what then? can't butcher.
if he does make it past the withdrawl time are you willing to chance a fever, relapse...meaning another infection and still butcher?
what about the pain he is in are you willing to let him suffer?
After you have paid the vet bills and if you are able to sell it and it gets say $400.00 how much of that went to heal the calf from this one illness.
How much for vaccines, tags, de wormer for the cow and the calf.
How much is left over after that?
Then...How much did it cost to put up enough hay for that cow? Here we are probably going to pay $50.00 a bale delivered. Where you are how much? HOw many bales will that cow eat? Here we plan for 6-8 bales including bedding. But with a rough winter we like to see 10 just to have a few to play around with. How about the tractor cost to feed that cow, mineral, supplement. What are you left then at the end for profit? Or to live on?
These are all things we should think about when treating a calf or cow repeatedly for the same problem.

next
I'm not sure what you used for pain med was it an anti inflamatory?
have you decided did he responsd to the antibiotic or the pain med?
If it was the antibiotic and then a relapse you are looking at a for lack of a better word PI calf. "Persistantly infected" no amount of antibiotics will help and he is costing more money than he is worth and a decision needs to be made. Can the money be better spent else where? I do not ask this question llightly cause we to have over treated an animal thinking we could heal it and it ended up having to be put down. it's truely hard to make that call.
If he responded to the pain med maybe it's no more than a sore joint like we get but after 5 weeks of treating he should have gotten better...just like humans do.
how much more are you willing to spend. xrays are not cheap, neither is another vet visit, how much more in drugs while the little one is in pain?
Go to the board i think beginners and look up Caustic Bruno's post "reposting". I can not think of the original post name but check out the one i gave you. He has good insight on cattle and how they should work for us. I know these are the tough calls but...how much can you afford to spend when it keeps relapsing?
Just my two cents in a book. feel free to file it under "G" if you like. Just my experince with this sort of problem, and the new measures we have put place if something like this happens again. (the continueous treating and relapsing thing)
Good luck