Sick/Starving/Dying Calf - Completely Stumped

[TR]

Its been a very long time since I've been on these boards, but I've now got a problem I could use a 2nd or 3rd opinion on. Long story short, I've had a very powerful pneumonia virus out here that hits the calves at a week or so of age. First two calves of the year were fine and are now 9 and 10 month old replacement heifers, fully vaccinated, and about a month away from re-vaccination with the remainder of the herd. 3rd calf born in late March came down with pneumonia at 2 weeks. He was brought up to the pen, seen by the vet, and given a single dose of Draxxin and a dose of Banamine every other day for total of 3 doses. Next calf and every subsequent calf since has been vaccinated with Enforce – 3 and Bovi-Serum at birth, no problems. So, sick calf is turned back out to pasture with mom and does ok for next 2 months. He then gets a great big abscess on lower right hand jaw. Sort of in a line from the base of his ear down to this throat. Vet comes out again and lances abscess and has me flush it with mild Betadine/water solution for next 3 days, and hydro it for a week. During this time, the poor calf starts scouring and scouring badly; pure light color water. So, along with flushing the abscess, I started him on Love Potion #9. Temp was up at 106 or so. He was not eating and barely nursing. Went back to the vet for more Draxxin and Banamine thinking the pneumonia is making a comeback as he was coughing and congested. I could hear him breathe. He did a little better after the Draxxin and was nibbling grass along with nursing. Nothing that I would actually call eating, he was not interested in grain and only a few mouthfuls of hay. I took a fecal sample up to the vet to rule out e-Coli or Coccidiosis, or just plain 'ol parasites. Fecal came back negative for anything. So, he went back out to pasture as he was showing some interest in grass and he needed to eat. So, here we are another 6 weeks or so later, and this guy is nothing but a bag of bones. He is barely nursing, scouring like crazy, the abscess has re-appeared and broken open again in 3 different places, and he's running a temp of 104.8. So, I re-opened the abscess again in another place and packed it with Chlorohexadine soaked gauze and am now running a round of Baytril through him along with Banamine given every other day for 3 days, and electrolytes with vitamins and minerals in it along with 20g Probiotics per day. The scours are slowing and he has more substance in them now, but the thought dawned on me last night, could he possibly have hardware disease? He is definitely in pain, grinds his teeth when I'm working on him, he walks completely hunched over, kicks at his stomach, is not eating (I haven't seen him chew cud for I don't even know how long), is now barely nursing, and has a positive reaction to any antibiotic I've given him. He is simply starving to death. The logical answer is to ship him now, but I just can't in all good faith, put this calf into the food chain knowing that he's not gone through any withdrawal period for the drugs. Plus, its simply embarrassing and the buyers around here know us, so I'd rather not tarnish our reputation by hauling a sick calf. I certainly wouldn't eat him knowing what he has in his system, so am really stretching my brain wondering what on earth is going on with this calf. Giving him a magnet wouldn't hurt him, so my thought is its worth a try, and I'm just wondering if he did get a hold of something that first poked him in the jaw giving him the abscess, then swallowed it. What are your thoughts around this?

 

[randiliana]

Sometimes the only solution is to put them down. It's a hard decision to make, but you have to take into account what is best to do for the animal.

 

[Anonymous]

Put him down. Sounds like he's chronic.

 

[Kingfisher]

Can you "image" a calf/cow and tell if they have hardware in them?

 

[Anonymous]

Metal detector works sometimes.

 

[Jessica06]

I'm not even going to ask how much $$ you have put into him. I'd cut my losses and put him down, too.

 

[TR]

Really, just drugs and time. Oh, and one vet call. I can't remember if he charged me for the fecal or not. I had most of the drugs on hand anyway, and they were going out of date, so putting them into him as opposed to tossing them out was a better deal in my mind. I'm at the limit of $$ I'll put into them before giving up though, so this is basically "Do or Die" for him....

I'm wondering if the snake bite blew his immune system out? He came down with pneumonia relapse #1 after I vacc'd him with the Enforce 3 and Bovi-serum after he abscessed, and pneumonia relapse #2 this time after I boostered him with Triangle 9 and Ultrabac 8. He's doing better as of last night. Scours are gone, but they usually do once his temp goes down due to the antibiotics. I popped a magnet into him last night and he wasn't quite as hunched over as he had been the previous couple of days. He took his electrolytes much better than he had the night before, which was better than it was the night before that, and as soon as I let him out of the chute, he went over to the trough and started eating the range meal I had in there, so that is better than it was 2 days ago too. I'm not sure.....he either doesn't want to die, or I just won't let him. I honestly don't know how he's not dead yet. The plan is to give him to this weekend coming up to show some improvement. Mostly so if he has to be shot, I can do it during the day where I don't have to dispose of him after work in the dark or before work in the morning.

 

[Anonymous]

That's the first I've read the calf was snake bit. Rule of thumb is 3 days recovery for every day of symptomatic ills. But you're there and we aren't.

 

[Jessica06]

It is so frustrating when you go above and beyond, and they just don't get better. I bet the snakebite had something to do with it. Do you think it was a rattler? Sounds like he might be on the mend, but I'm with you on this being his last chance.

 

[redcowsrule33]

Sounds like every time you challenge his immune system it crashes. I would BVD PI test him.

 

[TR]

Gosh, yeh, I thought I did mention that I thought the abscess was a result of a snake bite mostly because it started as a real rubbery/leathery/fluidy kind of look under his jaw. LIKE bottle jaw, but not. We had another cow get bit, and a couple of dogs around here, and they had that same soft look to them. Its hard to explain. Its tissue swelling, but not puffed up to where its hard...make sense? Just a soft, fluidy, rubbery sort of look to them. In any case, I watched it for a week or so. Dun's "Benign Neglect", and when it finally localized into an abscess, I jumped into action. Now, that abscess isn't quite behaving like any abscess I've seen either. It drained, and didn't have any connected pockets that either the Vet or I found, but as I was treating it, he pulled his head back against the head gate, and another pocket opened up above the one we drained. The abscess swelling has never really gone down, and I hadn't come out with any pus when taking a needle to it. Now, this week, the upper one has opened up in two additional places. They are not deep like the bottom one was. Like I said, my original thought was snake bite, but you know with calves, it could be anything, so I've not harped on that point. Now, like redcowsrule33 says, it seems that every time his immune system is challenged, it crashes. I've heard that can be a side effect of snake bite.

I haven't a clue what kind of snake it was. We have a deep creek running through the middle of our property, so I've seen them all out here. Rattlers, Cottonmouths and Copperheads, not to mention rat snakes and king snakes....red and green racers too.

I guess you can't rule out BVD-PI, but we run a closed herd and the neighbors do too. I'm guessing that if he tested positive, we'd need to test the remainder of the herd. But everyone is vaccinated....2X/year, so really think BVD-PI? The pneumonia they've been getting is viral in that they never develop the bacterial, yellow/green snots. Clear mucous sometimes, but mostly I've detected it when I see them panting and by then, its almost too late. Ya pull them up and sometimes you can hear them breathe, and sometimes it takes a stethoscope to hear the pneumonia. They always have temps, and high ones too. Like I said, now the calves just get Enforce-3 and Bovi-Serum antibodies when they hit the ground. Much easier preventing than trying to cure. This particular calf was the one that set that protocol in motion, so with him we treated.

 

[Anonymous]

If he was bit and it wasn't a dry bite his system will have to process the toxins. My own experience recently is that the last symptom, assuming it's not death, is blood in the urine.
That's actually a good sign because it means his kidneys are processing it.
The only thing is that a calf doesn't stand a good chance of surviving any bite with venom in it
Plus secondary infection is a huge factor. Usually staph. Treat that with a broad spectrum antibiotic like la300. Every other day.

This is all based on the assumption it was a snakebite.

 

[TR]

So, the snake bite was about 2 months ago...maybe 6 weeks. I'm thinking that his body has processed the toxins, but what is left is a compromised immune system? I never did see him pee blood, but I hadn't seen him pee in forever until tonight, and tonight it looked normal. Not even neon yellow from the electrolytes and vitamins I've been drenching him with. But then again, maybe it wasn't a snake bite and he just keeps having pneumonia relapses because he originally contracted it while so very young? Maybe the Banamine at that young age damaged his kidneys?

 

[greybeard]

Snake bite always takes a long recover time, especially if near head or heart. Serpent's mouth is nasty too--always warrants a tetanus shot in humans--not sure about cattle.

Off topic but For whatever reason tho, dogs seem to handle snakebites better than most other animals.

 

[Anonymous]

If it was 2 months ago he should be eating normal now. Scours are likely from the antibiotics. You could try some probiotics or even a wad of cud from another cow and jam it down his throat to reestablish the good bacteria. But that's only if he is clear of other symptoms. Check with your vet again and ask about pi possibilities too. Me, I would try a couple rounds of the la300 and see if is a systemic infection keeping him down.you may be using a rifle when you need a shotgun approach. If that doesn't do it put him down.

 

[TR]

He scours when he runs a high fever before I run a round of antibiotics through him. Once the antibiotics are in him and the fever lowers, the scours stop. I always give probiotics when I run a course of antibiotics through them, so that's good, and I've doubled his dose per the Vet's instructions so he's had 20g a day for the past 4 days. He's got one more dose of Baytril to go and I'll give another 20 g probiotics with it, as well as drench him with electrolytes and vitamins and minerals. He's been getting about a quart and a half of that in the evenings as well. I've also packed the deep abscess with chlorohexadine soaked gauze so the hole doesn't close up on the outside and leave a pocket on the inside, so I'll keep that up too. He's just now 6 mos old, and I'll leave him on his mother as that's about the only nutrition I see him getting. I almost think it hurts to chew, but the way he grinds his teeth when I'm working on that abscess negates that.

He had one Oxytet inj when we first opened up the abscess, but the vet had me run a course of Pen through him instead of Oxytet. So, he had 5 days of Pen. So, basically, in his short little life, he's had Draxxin/Banamine for pneumonia, Oxytet/Pen for Abscess, another Draxxin/Banamine combo for pneumonia, and now Baytril/Banamine. I also gave him 2ml of Dex tonight. I really hesitated on that too, but thought a little steroid might help and it was indicated for snake bite. He definitely felt better when he left the chute this evening, so maybe that'll help him want to put something in his mouth to eat.

His lungs may be so scarred from the pneumonia that they just can't remove fluid like normal predisposing him to re-infection. Anyways, it sounds like from the general consensus that I've covered all my bases, and that if I have to shoot him, I can do so knowing I've truly done all that can be done to help him.

 

[TR]

Well heck...little man out there is nursing and eating grass like nothing was ever wrong with him. Now I KNOW it wasn't my supportive therapy that got him interested in food overnight. Had to have been the Dex. That Cortisone sure is a wonder drug albeit a scary one. He's finished his round of Baytril per label, and since he's nursing really, really well and eating grass, so I don't think I'll do any more with him tonight. I sure don't know.....this one still has me stumped.

 

[Anonymous]

Let's hope he continues to improve.

 

[Nesikep]

Dex is an anti-inflamatory, right? and if I remember correctly, it hampers the immune system... I think it's pretty short-acting too

Good to hear he seems to be better, at least for now... it could be that dex, with an antibiotic is what's good for him by the sounds of it...

My vet told me that most hardware gets stuck in the bottom of the rumen, and by pressing upward on their belly will cause them to arch their back if they have hardware.. Just what I've been told

We had a strange type of pneumonia around here when we first got cattle, and we think it had something to do with the horses on the place before us... Middle of the summer (100F outside in the shade), 1 cow a year would start panting, then coughing, and there was nothing we could do for her, LA300 did nothing... we had one bred heifer who partly recovered.. never quite got over the cough though, she ended up as freezer beef and was tough as rubber. after about 5 years of losing a cow a year (always the best ones, murphy at work), we haven't had a sign of it since