new born calf total rigid muscles

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rcrawley

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Need any information. We have has a rash of calves that when born have muscles that are rigid and cannot be moved. The condition does not improve. The only common link and this is not 100 % was grazing on drought stressed hay grazer pasture after a heavy rain. But not all of the cows were in this pasture.
 
necropsy been done with no results. Also specific inspection of brain of three calves. Could this extreem of a selenium deficiency not have symptoms in the cow?
 
More info needed to even begin to guess at possibilities.

What's your geographic location?
Breed(s) of cows & sires?
Same sire group(s), or calves from different sires affected?
Mineral supplementation program?
Micronutrient analysis (Cu, Se, etc.) on liver tissue from affected calves?
Viral testing performed?
Pasture conditions/forages consumed during the entirety of the pregnancy? You mention drought-stressed hay grazer(whatever that is) after rain - but that's not what these cows were eating for the entire 9 month gestation. Sometimes the 'insult' during fetal development occurrs weeks/months before delivery, and is no longer present or detectible.

You say 'rigid muscles' - but is this actually a muscle problem, or is it a joint/ligament problem, like arthrogryposis?
 
Northwest Arkansas
Milking Shorthorn and Holstine
Calves from different sires affected
Have to get back with you about mineral program but is customized for specific pasture
Hay Grazer is a sudan hybrid, milking cows on TMR, when dry typically fescue, bermuda or one of sudan type annuals.
The muscles themselves are hard, kind of like a muscle cramp but the entire body.
 
Mineral includes trace elements. Mature cows receive mixed feed both milking and dry. Heiffers get mineral sporadically. There have been calves from both mature cows and first time heiffers.
 
Have you tried taking a blood sample for analysis after the calf is born? Are they born alive, and later die? Or do you have to euthanize them? How many calves have been born affected versus normal?
Sorry to hear about your losses. I hope you can find a solution soon!
 
If there is another one will be doing liver analysis. The calves do not die. In fact one that only had back legs affected was placed in a sling and fed for two weeks. Very small percentage but never occured until this fall. Still wondering if something in drought stressed sudan grass pasture could cause this. We also had a number of heidders abort because they were left on the sudan after a rain.
 

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