Need help with calf

[mnikpat]

I have a 6 week old calf that is an angus mix. She is not doing so well. She mopes around and doesn't seem interested in anything except her bottle that she gets twice a day. We have had her for a little over a week now. She seems to have a hard time eating her bottle sometimes. She makes a congested sound when she drinks from the bottle. She drools a lot all the time. She only makes very small poops.

Can anyone recommend anything that might help her?

Thanks
Nichole

 

[Earl Thigpen]

Take her to the vet!

 

[Alice]

Your calf more than likely has pneumonia. Take her to a vet so he/she can listen to her lungs and take her temp. The medication/antibiotics that the calf will need to combat the problem will have to come from the vet as it is prescription only. The antibiotics that you can buy at the feed store or TSC over the counter will not touch it. Also, pick up some probios. You'll need to give it to the calf when it gets the antibiotics.

At six weeks, the calf should be eating dry feed/calf starter grower along with the bottle. Right now, with the pneumonia, the calf needs all the nutrition it can get. If it won't eat dry feed, up the amount in the bottle. And get it some hay.

But first things first...take the calf to the vet.

Good luck,

Alice

 

[Sir Loin]

Give her a shot of LA-200 and two feedings of Kick Start(both over the counter) with no milk replacer.
SL

 

[angie1]

Give her a shot of LA-200 and two feedings of Kick Start(both over the counter) with no milk replacer.
SL

LA200 won't touch this SL.

Take her to the vet. The meds you need are prescription only. Don;t mess with the OTC stuff, you are just wasting time and money.

 

[Sir Loin]

Angie,

What can I say except that it works for me.
Re:

LA200 won't touch this

What is "THIS"? And what symptoms are you seeing that leads you to believe LA won't touch it?
From the limited info we have it could very well simply be that the calf is just home sick.
Here's how I see it.

I have a 6 week old calf that is an angus mix. She is not doing so well. She mopes around and doesn't seem interested in anything except her bottle that she gets twice a day. We have had her for a little over a week now

Could simply be home sickness and/or loneliness.
Re:

She seems to have a hard time eating her bottle sometimes.

Again, Could be home sickness and/or loneliness. Or over feeding. The key word is "sometimes".

Re:

She makes a congested sound when she drinks from the bottle.

A lot of calves do that! Maybe the hole in the nipple is to small.
Re:

She drools a lot all the time.

Lots of calves do that also, especially after eating.
Re:

She only makes very small poops.

Small is a relative term. Small as compared to what? At least she is going and that is what is important.

What are you seeing that I'm not that would justify spending around $100?
Your turn
SL

 

[angie1]

I agree with Alice ~ sounds to me like pneumonia. If this is so, time is of the essence and LA200 won't help at all.

The key to the message SL is to take the thing to a vet. A vet. If the vet says LA200, I want to hear about it.

 

[Sir Loin]

Angie,
Re:

sounds to me like pneumonia

What makes you say that? What in the post indicates pneumonia?
Now mnikpat doesn't list his location, so I can't say for certain but we are not in the time of the year when pneumonia is that common.
And as it is only 6 weeks old and is being bottled fed I will assume it is not outside sleeping on the cold wet ground which is the most common cause of pneumonia.
Again, what in mnikpat post makes you think it's pneumonia?
SL

 

[angie1]

My powers of intuition SL.

I am not dancing with you. I stand behind my post.
We'll see what the vet says.

 

[TexasBred]

Pneumonia is not restricted to the dead of winter. We probalby have more calves die in the warmer month of pneumonia than any other time of year. Big temperature swings, hot today, cold tonight, cool tomorrow, high humidities......a real paradise for bacteria of every kind.

 

[Sir Loin]

Angie,
Re:

My powers of intuition SL. I am not dancing with you.

Now here I am trying to learn something new and you won't even hold my hand.
Well it's your loss because I am a good dancer and I love to dance. So there!

Now seriously,
If I thought it was pneumonia I wouldn't recommend LA-200 either.
I'm just trying to find out what you know that I don't. So teach this old dog some new tricks.
SL

 

[Sir Loin]

TB,
I can believe that, as I had the same experience when I was in Fla.
But here in TN and north pneumonia occurs mostly in cold and wet weather.

When I am not sure if I am dealing with pneumonia my first choice is always LA-200 as it covers a multitude of sins.
FYI:

LIQUAMYCIN LA-200 is approved for:
• The treatment of pneumonia and shipping fever complex associated with Pasteurella spp. and Hemophilus spp.; infectious bovine keratoconjunctivitis (pinkeye) caused by Moraxella bovis; footrot and diphtheria caused by Fusobacterium necrophorum; bacterial enteritis (scours) caused by Escherichia coli; wooden tongue caused by Actinobacillus lignieresii; leptospirosis caused by Leptospira pomona; and wound infections and acute metritis caused by strains of staphylococci and streptococci organisms sensitive to oxytetracycline.

• Source: http://www.pfizerah.com/product_overvie ... species=BF
If they show no improvement I then go to another antibiotic that I have on hand.
Such as:

What are some of the common antibiotics used for treatment of pneumonia in cattle? There are a number of newer drugs as well as some that have been around for many years. Some of the newer drugs include; Naxcel®, Nuflor®, and Tilmicosin®. Also relatively new are the long acting tetracyclines which can now be given subcutaneously instead of intramuscularly. Older drugs include Polyflex® (ampicillin), penicillin, Tylan®, sulfa drugs, and erythromycin.

Source: http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/vetext/IN ... a9711.html.
sulfa drugs? Now that is old. :lol: My dad use to grind up barn burner match heads and feed it to calves with pneumonia.
SL

 

[Alice]

The calf mopes...the calf has a hard time drinking it's bottle...the calf sounds congested...the calf drools...the calf is six weeks old and past scouring. Bottom line, if it's not pneumonia I'd bet it's a close first cousin to it. LA200 used to have a place in the calf business, but I truly believe that's past...for anything anymore.

Now, as for there being a particular "season" for pneumonia in calves...around here that season lasts 12 months outta the year. There's all kinds of reasons that calves wind up with pneumonia...biggest being, they're calves. Calves in that shape need prescription antibiotics...nuflor, draxxin, baytril and they need anti-inflammatory meds, not LA 200 and scour treatment. And, like Angie, if a vet recommends LA200 I definitely want to hear about it. That would worry me greatly...

Also, SL, I'm going on what large animal vets charge around here, but for something like this, it wouldn't cost anything near $100. Heck, it wouldn't cost $50.

Alice

 

[Earl Thigpen]

mnikpat, is the calf still alive?

 

[msscamp]

TB,
...and north pneumonia occurs mostly in cold and wet weather.

I can't answer for other parts of the north, but in my part of the north pneumonia occurs mostly during spring and fall when there are wide temperature fluctuations - you know, 60 degrees during the day, and 20 degrees at night. Cold, wet weather is usually the cause of a scours outbreak.

SL

 

[Sir Loin]

msscamp

We're saying the same thing.
Our cold weather rolls in out of the NW and when it hits the warm air it causes rain and a rapid temp change.
I've seen it go from clear and 70 degrees to freezing rain in about 3 hours.
I had no cases of pneumonia this winter and I attribute that to the facts that we only had slow temp changes and only two freezes that put ½ inch of ice on the waters, even though we had a lot of rain.
The other thing I attribute it to is that at the onset of wet cold weather I roll some hay down a hill and the babies bed down on the waste and in the hay rings to stay off the cold wet ground.
But you all are correct about spring and fall, as in some areas you do have the same rapid weather changes that seems to only occur here in the winter.
I know that when I was in PA spring and fall was the prime pneumonia season as winter had little temp changes and no rain (just snow). It was cold all winter.
SL