Sick cows

[rldufferIII]

Two days ago I noticed a 3 to 4 year old cow off by herself. Depressed looking, head hung down, almost as if it was in a trance, slight drool, slight runny nose. Lost weight quickly, two days later, dead. Noticed two other young cows (3 to 5 years) yesterday/today with same symptoms. Vet can't come for a couple of days. Concerned about losing more.
Any thoughts, suggestions, etc.

 

[M-5]

where are you??

 

[rldufferIII]

Southside Virginia

 

[skyhightree1]

Wonder why all these new acct's are set up and first post all about losing cattle.

 

[TCRanch]

Really need more info. Did your vet indicate what might be the problem? This time of year it could be anything from anaplasmosis to summer pneumonia if they're also coughing. Are their briskets swollen? Are they eating, even if they've lost weight? Are their temps normal?

 

[kenny thomas]

Two days ago I noticed a 3 to 4 year old cow off by herself. Depressed looking, head hung down, almost as if it was in a trance, slight drool, slight runny nose. Lost weight quickly, two days later, dead. Noticed two other young cows (3 to 5 years) yesterday/today with same symptoms. Vet can't come for a couple of days. Concerned about losing more.
Any thoughts, suggestions, etc.

Are these cows from the stockyard recently?

 

[Lucky_P]

Been seeing an anaplasmosis case coming through the diagnostic lab at least 2-3 times a week for the last 2-3 weeks. With the history and signs you've described, it's at the top of my list of possibilities. Talk to your vet about whether or not he/she is seeing it in your area.

 

[Rafter S]

Two days ago I noticed a 3 to 4 year old cow off by herself. Depressed looking, head hung down, almost as if it was in a trance, slight drool, slight runny nose. Lost weight quickly, two days later, dead. Noticed two other young cows (3 to 5 years) yesterday/today with same symptoms. Vet can't come for a couple of days. Concerned about losing more.
Any thoughts, suggestions, etc.

Look for another vet.

 

[boondocks]

Lucky's note on anaplasmosis got me curious; as a newbie I have heard about it but didn't know much. I found this good fact sheet if anyone else is interested: http://icwdm.org/PDF's/anaplasmosisTXA&M.pdf

The points about not moving or exciting an infected cow were interesting, as was the fact that once the disease process is well underway, the animal either dies (pretty quickly) or slowly recovers, and that often it can't be diagnosed early enough for antibiotics to be useful. Lucky and others, in the situation the OP describes, unless s/he can get a vet out asap, it seems like one of the best measures for the OP would be to quickly separate the well animals away? As an aside, the linked article notes that clusters of anaplasmosis may be due to infection from instruments, tools, chutes etc while working the animals, whereas more spread-out "serial" infections would be more likely due to an insect vector (eg, mosquito spreading the bacterium from infected cow to well cow). Makes sense I guess?

 

[Drzr]

For help!

 

[Drzr]

Wonder why all these new acct's are set up and first post all about losing cattle.

Oh Great Spirit, who made all races,look kindly upon the whole human family and take away the arrogance and hatred which separates us from our brothers.

 

[Supa Dexta]

Most new people find their way on here when they have problems. Some random person doesn't just sign up to tell us his cows are doing ok.

 

[bball]

I would get the sick ones isolated quick as I could..preferably to a pen or barn where you can check them often. And as stated prior, get yourself another vet!

 

[BRYANT]

Been seeing an anaplasmosis case coming through the diagnostic lab at least 2-3 times a week for the last 2-3 weeks. With the history and signs you've described, it's at the top of my list of possibilities. Talk to your vet about whether or not he/she is seeing it in your area.

I had problem several years ago with Anaplasmosis but it hit some older cows and the vet said it was not as much of a problem in younger cattle as it is in older stock

Lucky P
do you see it as much in cattle in this age bracket 3 - 5 yrs. old. Or do you see it in cattle that are older or cattle that have been pulled down from calves or poor feeding?
I keep Medicated mineral and medicated range meal out do you think that helps?

 

[Lucky_P]

Boondock, that linked article is nearly 25 years old... it reflected our knowledge (or what we thought we knew) at that time... some of the information is valid, but there's a lot in there that is now known not to be correct.

Clinical disease is seen mostly in mature animals.
We rarely see clinical cases of anaplasmosis in cattle under 12-15-18 months of age - they're still building body mass, their erythropoietic (red blood cell-making) system is still ramped up - so they respond immunologically and hematopoietically, and can rapidly overcome the loss of RBCs without becoming severely anemic. In some of those older calves, they may have increased temperature and increased respiratory rate due to borderline anemia - and be misdiagnosed as respiratory disease cases.
These animals which are infected as youngsters will be persistently infected, and can serve as a source of infection for other animals in the herd... but will likely never develop clinical disease.
'Naive' older animals that were not exposed early in life are the ones that are most at risk; if introduced into a herd (or area) where infected animals are present - or if an infected animal is introduced into a herd with no previous infection...trouble may not be far off.

Feeding CTC at 0.5mg/lb/day during the vector(ticks) season will control MOST clinical cases in infected herds - will NOT prevent infection, and there may be an occasional 'breakthrough' case.
Medicated minerals may help, but even if each animal consumes the theoretical 4 oz of mineral per day that most are formulated for... there's only enough CTC in there for a 750 lb animal... May not be enough to keep from having clinical cases... but better than nothing.

Back in the past, we'd often (mistakenly) recommend treating the entire herd with an LA-oxytet... but sometimes we just prolonged the outbreak; the infection in those animals in the incubation phase just picked right back up where it left off when the antibiotics wore off. Saw one herd one time that prolonged the outbreak from August, clear into late December by wholesale treating with LA OTC...
Current recommendations are to treat clinically-affected animals with injectible OTC and start feeding CTC to the herd.
Treating clinically-affected animals with injectible OTC just slows the organism down long enough (hopefully) for the animal to ramp up RBC production enough to survive the acute phase.
Treatment with oxytet (even multiple doses) will not effectively 'clear' the infection... animals that survive will be persistently infected, and can continue to serve as a source of infection.
Feeding CTC at 2mg/lb/day for 60 days will 'clear' most animals of the infection - but they are susceptible to reinfection. I don't know that I could recommend 'feeding for clearance' for most operations... but if they HAVE to have test-negative animals for sale, it may be necessary.

While anaplasmosis is principally tick-vectored in most areas, it can be spread by needles, instruments, OB sleeves, etc., and theoretically, by biting flies - though other than with strains of the organism found mostly in FL and CA - horseflies, etc. are of minimal importance...
I occasionally see cases far outside the normal expected time frame - say, like in March - and have to think that those were probably iatrogenic(human-caused)... and that those producers 'worked the herd' 6 weeks or so earlier and transmitted it from a carrier animal to a naive one by reusing needles between multiple animals.

There is a vaccine available... currently licensed for sale in something like 18 states. Reports I've received from vets/producers using it have been favorable. Does not prevent infection, and vaccinated animals will be seropositive... but it seems to all but eliminate clinical cases.

 

[boondocks]

Boondock, that linked article is nearly 25 years old... it reflected our knowledge (or what we thought we knew) at that time... some of the information is valid, but there's a lot in there that is now known not to be correct.
...
There is a vaccine available... currently licensed for sale in something like 18 states. Reports I've received from vets/producers using it have been favorable. Does not prevent infection, and vaccinated animals will be seropositive... but it seems to all but eliminate clinical cases.

Lucky, thanks for the info. I have asked my LA vet about Ana in our area; apparently it's extremely rare to nonexistent but that is expected to change due to vectors.

 

[Lucky_P]

boondock
Historically, it's been considered primarily a 'Southern' problem - but, with the way folks move cattle around these days, that's not necessarily the case anymore.
While it's less common 'up north', there have been outbreaks even in the northern tier of states bordering Canada - and outbreaks in Canada, as well - mainly due to importation of cattle that were test-negative on the crappy old Complement Fixation test that we used to use( with sensitivity of only about 60%, it probably missed a lot of infected cattle) .

We know a lot more about the disease, have better tests available, and know more about how best to treat and/or manage the disease now than we did when I graduated vet school 30 years ago. There's a lot of information out there on the Internet, but some of it's out-of-date, and some, even from reputable sources, is just flat-out wrong... even though it may have reflected the level of knowledge at the time it was originally published.