Summer Pneumonia

[cghoerichs]

I had a calf go down yesterday morning. He was an angus steer that was 200-250 hundred pounds, not weaned. Found him hanging out in a puddle and pretty listless. He got up but stood with his hind legs further back than normal, didn't run off like normal and his head kind of down etc. Neighbor said that he thought it was summer pneumonia because of the way he was standing and was drawn to the water because of the fever. I gave the calf penicillin and banamine. This AM I found the calf dead. I decided to post the animal to see if I could find anything strange. I didn't get to post it for about 6 hours so I'm not sure of what I was seeing as strange was because of the +6 hours or not.
The only strange things I saw on the inside were the following:
Diarrhea in large intestine that was very liquid
Large blood clots in the heart - clotting from death +6hours?
Small purplish blood spots on the lungs causing them to look dark rather than bright pink - clotting from death +6hours?

Anybody have any experience that cares to speculate?

Thanks

 

[ga.prime]

Respiratory infection, I don't think the season of the year makes any difference except that in the summer they die faster. There are much more effective antibiotics than penicillin for this lethal illness. Baytril and Micotil are two of them that I've used with astounding results. I keep a bottle of Baytril because there's not much time to act when you find one in this condition. I send cows that have calves that develope resp. infection to the packing house.

 

[cghoerichs]

I guess I hadn't found any info that said that cows throw resp infection calves as a trait. She's thrown good calves until this year, although she's getting up there in years.

 

[ga.prime]

They don't pass immunity to their progeny is my theory based on my microscopic experience.