Lump on calf's neck?

[tom4018]

Got a calf with a lump under her neck right behind her jaw. See no sign of external injury and not sure how long it has been that way. Feels like it has some hard tissue but not lump seems the skin is baggy there more than anything. She is only about a month old , one of my neighbors who has been around cattle all is life thought it might be an old bite and did not think it was infected. She does not act like its painful when I touch it. Mentioned it to our vet and she said give her LA 200 for now and see what it does. Any ideas?

 

[Texan]

Sounds to me like you need to change vets. Advocating the use of antibiotics without evidence of the bacterial infection that they are designed to treat is very irresponsible vet medicine, in my opinion. Unless of course, you gave the vet information that you didn't post here, like whether or not the calf has a fever.

At some point in the future, our access to antibiotics will face some serious restrictions. The haphazard use of them in situations where they're not indicated will make that happen sooner, rather than later. I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to have a prescription to buy a tetracycline or penicillin.

My personal opinion is that if you follow your vet's advice, you will then be rewarded with a calf with two lumps. I'd go with the neighbor's advice. In my experience, most of these lumps or knots either stay forever or go away, no matter what you do. Unless it started to abcess or get bigger, I would consider it a non issue.