Our first loss of this year? Maybe...

[IluvABbeef]

Tomorrow is not gonna be a good day. We already have a calf down with symptoms of pneumonia, and he's been like that for more than a week now. There's about half a dozen others in the barn with him that have the similar lung virus, but they're getting better everyday, so I'm not worried about them.

Last week this calf (RWF) was always the first to lie down, often without chewing his cud, but he'd always get up immediately if I got too close to him. He drank a lot, but I didn't see him eat much.

This weekend, he's worse; yesterday it was kinda hard to get him up, and he was too weak to bunt or try to defend himself. Today, Dad got him in the squeeze to needle him (gave him some LA200 (Oxyvet) and Micotil), but couldn't stand and went down almost immediately, he was so weak (his breathing is laboured too, in grunts) And the calf's ears were frozen stiff, he was lacking in circulation. So he (dad) went and put a halogen light on him (500W) and a propane heater, to get his ears thawed out and try and get some circulation going.

We kept him in the squeeze for a bit, gave him a bucket of water and put some hay in front of him (didn't even touch it, though he did drink the water) then after me and mom and dad had finished putting the cabover on the 7240 tractor, we tried to get him up, couldn't (after a good five minutes of fruitless effort), so we doubled up some rope on one of the calf's front legs, and bodily pulled him out of the squeeze. He got up very breifly, but went down right away, probably 'cause his legs were frozen too.

We didn't want to pull that calf all the way over to the pile of straw where the other calves were, so me an dad went and scooped up a few forkfuls of straw, put it around him, then man-handled him to get some straw underneath, at least to keep him off the freezingly cold snow.

{sigh} Then we put a couple of halogen lights on him, and a tarp over him like a blanket to insulate him and keep the cold out and the warmth in.

We're keeping an eye on him as I speak, but there's no real hope that he'll make it through the night. And if he passes on, this'll count as the first calf we lost in this year's bunch.

 

[glover36]

did u try excenel or nuflor we have had ones like this and different calves respond to different meds

 

[glover36]

or bio micin

 

[IluvABbeef]

i haven't thought of trying the nuflor or the excenel (the latter I haven't heard of before), nor the bio micin. I don't really know much of these meds, so i dunno what help it's gonna be.

More concerned right now of keeping him warm so he can hopefully live longer.

 

[glover36]

o ok just to let you know excenel and nuflor are up there in price over a 100 for a bottle

 

[IluvABbeef]

o ok just to let you know excenel and nuflor are up there in price over a 100 for a bottle

Yeah, Micotil is the same way. I think it's $140 per bottle (small 50 ml one).

 

[Roadapple]

Are you saying he's been sick for a week and you're just treating him now?

 

[holly heifer]

New drug called Draxxin- One dose sub cutaneous for resp
illness plus Banamine works wonders! Get it from the vet. ;-)

 

[milkmaid]

LA200, Biomycin, Agrimycin, oxtetracycline -- they're all the same thing. Oxytetracycline at 200mg/mL.

Excenel - haven't tried it for respiratory yet. Works OK on hoof problems.

Nuflor - one of my favorites for respiratory.

Baytril - my first choice for respiratory problems.

Never tried Draxxin before -- too expensive!

I had success once upon a time with putting a calf w/pneumonia in our garage under a heat lamp, and putting a space heater in front of her. She'd lay there with her face in the blowing air; think it helped her breathe.

Banamine is a good idea to take inflammation out of the lungs, and Rally 20 is an antihistamine that may also help the calf (or any others, if this one doesn't make it).

 

[dun]

Excenel - haven't tried it for respiratory yet. Works OK on hoof problems.

We had only used it on hoof rot until a month or so ago. Old cow was getting lungy and I didn;t feel like running to town and getting Nuflor. Excenel is labelede for respritory and the second shot isn;t required for 4-5 days. Gave one shot and it cleared up. The ice hit at day 4 following the shot and I just kept an eye on her. That was a couple of weeks ago and she's 100%.
But it's the first shot the old girl has had in her life other then vaccinations. She's the one coming 17 in the spring.

dun

 

[IluvABbeef]

Are you saying he's been sick for a week and you're just treating him now?

No, we've been treating him for a week.




Update: calf is still alive, still nursing him, but he hasn't moved much since yesterday. We had to put him back on the straw 'cause he must've rolled off, or tried to get up and fell off the pile. When I checked him (just a few minutes ago), looked like he was sleeping. Still won't eat, but he'll drink water. I'm still doubtful that he's gonna make it, but, there's still hope, as long as we keep him warm.

 

[IluvABbeef]

LA200, Biomycin, Agrimycin, oxtetracycline -- they're all the same thing. Oxytetracycline at 200mg/mL.

Excenel - haven't tried it for respiratory yet. Works OK on hoof problems.

Nuflor - one of my favorites for respiratory.

Baytril - my first choice for respiratory problems.

Never tried Draxxin before -- too expensive!

I had success once upon a time with putting a calf w/pneumonia in our garage under a heat lamp, and putting a space heater in front of her. She'd lay there with her face in the blowing air; think it helped her breathe.

Banamine is a good idea to take inflammation out of the lungs, and Rally 20 is an antihistamine that may also help the calf (or any others, if this one doesn't make it).

Thanks milkmaid, it's a bit breezy out this morning (not a cold, cold wind, thankfully), and his head is pointed into the wind, so that might help a little, we'll see.

How pricy is the Excenel, Rally 20 and the Banamine, or even Baytril, incase I can get dad to change his mind about using the Micotil?

One other thing...I'm gonna do some research right now on those vacc's y'all mentioned. Unless you can give me some insight on them yourselves, that'd be great...

 

[milkmaid]

Excenel; $65/100mL; Baytril, $85/100mL; Banamine, $30/100mL?; Rally 20, $25-30/100mL. Offhand I think Banamine and Rally 20 both use about 1-2cc/100lbs.

How old is this calf?

If he won't drink... there's an easy fix for that. Tube him. ;-) He does need some good nutrition to get well; he won't make it on just water.

 

[IluvABbeef]

I think he's around six months old.

Now how do you feed a sick, weak calf that doesn't want to eat? Force feed him by sticking hay in his mouth, or what?

By the way, he is drinking, dad just sets a pail of warm water in front of its nose and tries to get it to drink that way.

 

[glover36]

milkmaid what kind of foot problems do u use excenel for like foot root or strawberry?

 

[Kelly]

Make sure he is given plenty of electrolytes. If he drinks the warm water he should drink them fine hopefully. Give him some probiotics also as sometimes they will stimulate the appetite.

 

[IluvABbeef]

I went out again to check up on him, and showed signs of wanting to get up, only breifly. His head's up, and he's drinking a little bit, but hasn't touched the hay much. Dad tells me that the Micotil's the stuff that's keeping him alive. Maybe. I said it could also be the fact that we're keeping him warm and sheltered as much as possible that's also helping him stay alive.

Gave Dad the info on the Nuflor, and he phoned up one of the vet clinics (there's two in town), and found that the Nuflor might be a sight better than using Mic., but they vets there wouldn't fill out a perscription for him because he was getting his drugs from the other vet (these two vets have had hard feelings towards each other in the past over some difficulties, mostly political-related, so to speak. :roll: ) So Dad ordered some dexomethozon (can't remember the other name of this) to try on the sick one. He's gonna call Illia (the other vet that we frequently see more often than the other ones in town) to see if he carries Nuflor.

If yall say that the Nuflor'll do the trick, then I'm gonna have to take your word for it. :nod:

 

[IluvABbeef]

Make sure he is given plenty of electrolytes. If he drinks the warm water he should drink them fine hopefully. Give him some probiotics also as sometimes they will stimulate the appetite.

Would that count if there's a couple of stems of hay soaking in the water? I have a feeling that the nutrients from the hay in the water ( just a little, not a whole lot) might help to get some nutrients in his system.

 

[IluvABbeef]

Anybody know about "Dexamethasone"?

 

[Alice]

Anybody know about "Dexamethasone"?

It's an anti-inflamatory drug, but around here it's used if a calf gets "stove up," if it's limping around and in pain from what appears to be a joint/bone/bruise problem. Banamine would be the choice with pneumonia here...not dexamethazone. Did the vet recommend it for pneumonia?

Google it and you'll find out about it.

Alice