More Skinny Cows :-)

[wstevenl]

I've got a small herd of Dexter/Lowline/Angus cows. We rotate every 1-2 days to a new paddock and I'm feeding minerals. Most look great, young bulls/steers are FAT. I've got 2 nursing cows, 5 and 2 years old, that have dull coats and always have a big full grass belly but at their points, they are skinny. I wormed them 3 weeks ago with the bags of pelletized wormer. Should I give them more time? Or worm again with something else? Should I wean the bigger calf?

The larger calf is big and fat and could probably be weaned. The younger calf looks a little skinny.

Should I worm a 3 or 4 month old calf?

Could there be another problem other than parasites?

 

[aprille218]

Most pelleted dewormers aren't very effective. A drench or injectable product is usually more effective against a wider variety of worms. Can you supplement the calves? If you can creep feed just the calves or just the skinny cows with calves do that otherwise 4 months is plenty old enough to wean.

 

[chippie]

Agree with aprille218. Plus by deworming each animal individually, you know that it got the correct dose of medicine.
If would be good if you deworm them again about 4 to 6 weeks after you gave the the pellets. I would use an injectable like Ivermectin.

You should deworm all of your stock at the same time.

Can you post a pic of your cattle?

 

[wstevenl]

I don't normally treat for worms and I don't want to mess up all the well adapted animals I have by treating them all.

When I treated the two, I separated them and fed the pellets.

I plan on treating at least one of them again with a pour on.

 

[chippie]

Chances are your well adapted animals have parasites too. Treat them all to start breaking the life cycle.

The pour on is not as effective as a drench or injectable. There have been informative discussions about that here in the past. You should be able to find them using the search engine.