TR
Well-known member
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?