Seizures

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TheBullLady

TheBullLady

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Central Texas
Has anyone had any experience with a very young (under 10 days old) calf that seems to have epileptic seizures? I've got a bottle calf that is a week old.. she's always eaten good, no scours, or pnuemonia or any problems. This morning when I went to feed her, she tried to get up and was shaking so violently she couldn't stand. Not like cold shakes, but uncontrolable total muscle shaking. She fell on her side and her neck arched back. I "sat" her upright in a normal position. She was hungry, wanted to get up to eat, but I just kept her down and fed her while she was upright. This evening she is back to "normal".. running up and down and eating normally. But this morning's incident scares me!

I did a search on epilepsy in calves, but it's not a common occurance, especially for very young calves.

Any ideas? I'd take her to A & M, except I don't know that I can justify the $$ on a probable free martin heifer. (She's a twin )
 
The first thing I'd check is----is the calf visual? Vit A can cause seizures and usually blindness. As can Thiamin deficiency (polio)

Also, any sign of hypopyon? (pus in the eye in front of the iris) or navel infection? Encephalitis is possible...

And since I come from a rabies area, I have to also rule out rabies.

Without an exam, that's the list of rule outs I come up with off the top of my groggy early morning head...

V
 
She fell on her side and her neck arched back. I "sat" her upright in a normal position.
Click to expand...

I found one of my Dad's just as you descibed. No other cows/calves were around but I guess I thought it got kicked in the head. Messed around with it for awhile and it got up and walked off. I was suprised.

I'd say it may have been an epileptic seizure. Never saw it happen again, but didn't watch his all that close back then.
 
It could be like people, sometimes a person will have a seizure and it will never happen again, but who knows. Hopefully it was a one time occurance for your heifer.
 
Hi,
I work here at the beef center on campus at the University of Idaho and we had a heifer calf today that went into seizures. I had just finished going for a ride and came back to check on the cows due to calve and saw her.

She is about 13 days old and was standing out in the lot just like "normal" then she started to shake real bad then she dropped to the ground and started to seize. She arched her neck back, was kicking an thrashing around really bad. When she first went down it was like her back legs just locked and she flopped down. She trashed enough several times to roll completely over to the other side. She has the scours, and was completely uninterested in nursing at all. We gave her some electrolytes and milked the mom out and gave that to her. We also gave her a shot of something...I didn't give it. She got up walked around and looked like she felt better then started seizing again. Don't know what was going on.
 
In addition to minerals or electolytes, it could be some minor brain swelling due to trauma, or something simular to a viral meningitis. It could also have residual affects from a temporary lack of oxygen to the brain for a period of time during birth. It could go away with time if it is not something to be treated.
 
The heifer that I asked about in this old post actually ended up being fine. She never seized again ( I watched her like a hawk) and never showed any adverse affects. I'm thinking it must have been a "once in a lifetime" thing. She's a calf I'm bottle raising, and is really a dandy!
 
Glad to see that you didn't have any troubles after that one incident. This morning we treated the heifer with sulfa and lots of biolyte. My boss said that he thinks it was just severe dehydration due to the scours. She hasn't had anymore seizures since yesterday. Hopefully we won't have that problem anymore.

:D
 
We lost one to very similar seizures last year, out of one of my best cows too. I watched it's birth, totally normal, it got up to nurse acting totally normal, but after being up a few minutes it collapsed and started to seize. I worked on it at home trying to warm it up because the body temp had plummeted - then took it to the vet's but he died in the parking lot. We had our vet post him and he didn't find anything abnormal and he sent a number of organs to the state lab for testing and nothing showed up there either. We thought that since it happened so quickly after birth that it had something to do with oxygen dep. but it didn't show in his brain....still a mystery...
 

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