Sick yearling HELP! Weird case!

[Chelshvrcattle]

Ok so we have a yearling steer who we raised as a bottle calf. When he was a newborn he was sick with what we believe was coccidiosis. We treated him and he recovered beautifully and has been completely healthy and happy until about 4 weeks ago when he became suddenly ill. Basically, he was lethargic and lost weight. He had the desire to eat but it was as if he couldn't. We had to end up having to give him IV fluids and tube feeding him for about a week. Long story short, our vet ended up treating him with sodium iodide for possibly early wooden tongue which did help because at that point he was able to start grazing and eating on his own. We also had a equine dentist examine his teeth and mouth.

However- he is still not right and he has both our vets as well as a team at Colorado State vet school who our vet reached out to completely stumped.

His current symptoms-
-he grazes and eats hay however doesn't seem to get all that he picks, drops about half back out. He is constantly grazing as if he isn't getting full.
-He has a full pot belly but is still thin (sunken in at hips, can feel ribs and loose wrinkled skin at neck and brisket)
-His skin is extremely dry and flakey which we were told can be from the sodium iodide however he was treated with that 2 weeks ago and since then it randomly got a little better and then got way worse again
-He has a couple hard bumps in his neck under the skin which we believe is from vaccines but has not gone away.
-The couple times he has laid down and appears to be chewing his cud, he burps it up and it is green liquid- very abnormal
-His saliva and mouth have a foul rubber like odor.
-His manure is mostly normal.

Our vet considered hardware disease, some sort of foreign object in his gut, so I'm thinking our next step will be a ultrasound or X-ray but figured I'd check with my fellow cattle community first for any thoughts.

 

[Katpau]

I am guessing this is your pet, so most advice you receive here would not be what you want to hear. I can't imagine putting the money and effort into a yearling steer in order to IV and tube feed him. Most steers at that age are being fed out before they are butchered, and in today's market making a profit is already difficult on even a healthy animal. I guess if it were me, I would try to donate him to the University. They might be able to discover something about the cause with an necropsy. I would be hesitant to butcher him with his health being in question and withdrawal time for medications still being a possible issue. You could put a magnet in him and see if that makes a difference. If he is your pet and you're willing to spend the money, I guess an xray might be tried. If you let the University have him, I'd be interested in what they find.

I am curious about him burping up the green liquid rather than swallowing it. I had a cow once that was very difficult to put weight on and would also burp up green juice. There would be a pool of green in front of where she laid chewing her cud. When she was a heifer, pregnant with her first calf, she got herself somehow wedged up against a down tree. When we found her she could not rise until my husband drug her away from the tree. At first she could not walk on one leg, and we assumed it was injured, but it was apparently just asleep. She was able to walk after a little recovery time, but did not follow and graze with the rest of the herd for two days. She raised a good calf the next spring and was one of the first to breed the next two years. I culled her as a four year old after her third calf, because she was always too thin. I always wondered if there was damage to her rumen from being down.

 

[Chelshvrcattle]

Thanks for your reply. Yes he has become a pet and we are very attached to him. We fully know that it makes no sense to put even the money we already have into him. But nonetheless, we view him the same way we do our horses or dogs so cost isn't a issue. We just want him better. It's personal money paying his vet bills at this point, not business money haha. That's interesting about your experience with the green juice. I will definitely keep you posted if we ever come to any conclusions!

 

[darcelina4]

Has he been checked for hardware disease? Grass Tetany? Displaced Abomasum? Been dewormed? The potbellied with no weight on top is too low protein in his diet. Can you try some alfalfa starting with a small amount? The grass in the spring usually has a high water content and isn't very nutritious so he could be eating and still starving.

 

[sim.-ang.king]

Ulcers, or old throat damage is another possibility. With the pot belly I'd say he hasn't been right since he was born, and is lucky to be alive.