When you find a dead one, what happened?

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Putangitangi

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I lost a lovely heifer this morning - shot her, I mean, because there didn't seem to be much hope she'd come out of the seizure she'd been having for over an hour. But if I hadn't seen her and had found her dead, I'd never have known this happened beforehand.

The cows had gathered around her and when I saw them from the window, I assumed they'd found ground-nesting bird or something. A bit later I noticed one heifer lying in the middle of them (must have been her) and thought nothing more of it. When I went to the paddock, she started moving around more and after high-stepping with her front legs, head up, blundering about apparently unconscious of or unable to control where she was going, she went half-way through an electric fence. Then she bellowed in a really distressed manner, stopped and a couple of minutes later collapsed and I started recording. There didn't seem to be much I could do. I think she had a much milder event 20 days ago, then came on heat three days later. (On that occasion I found her grunting, looking like she really needed to cough, slightly incontinent and drooling.) I was waiting to see whether or not my insemination had taken. Now she's underground.

If you've seen anything like it or have any ideas what may have caused it, please tell me! They're on pasture only, we've never seen rye grass staggers or any other fungus-related issues. Her grandmother developed seizures at ten and had to be euthanized. Her mother is six and appears fine, other than some intense behavior around newborn calves which don't belong to her. The family is purebred Angus.
 
Take this for what it's worth- not much. But if the grand dam had seizures, it is possibly a genetic form of epilepsy. Some are more symptomatic than others, and fluxuations of hormones during estrus can lower the threshold in epileptic animals. Sounds plausible to me for this calf, I just don't know the likelihood of epilepsy in cattle- I assume pretty low incidence. But I did a quick google and it looks like Herefords have a few lines, it was seen in Swedish reds and Brown Swiss.

If it isn't epilepsy, the list of possibilities is very long. Rabies would be on it- everyone with livestock should keep that in mind! Toxins- I would imagine that it would be harder to tie them in with 20 day duration between initial event- if that occurred and the last. Meningitis- infectious and inflammatory causes; Structural defects of the brain/trauma; Unlikely at that age but possible- cancer; Cellular storage and myelin disorders; metabolic disorders- probably not if she seemed to be doing well otherwise; and then break those categories down further from there.

Maybe someone with a better clue will give you something useful.
 
Firstly, in my description I left some words out: the distressed bellowing wasn't in relation to the electric fence, from which she'd already backed out. I forgot to include her age, sorry: 16 months.

TexasBred":a9wpl4zg said:
Grass Tetany?? If so and IV would have helped her.
It's high summer and Magnesium deficiencies are relatively unlikely. There are none of the signs of increased nervousness I'd expect in the herd if that was the problem. But I will bear it in mind as I try and figure this out, thank you.

Commercialfarmer":a9wpl4zg said:
Take this for what it's worth- not much. But if the grand dam had seizures, it is possibly a genetic form of epilepsy. Some are more symptomatic than others, and fluctuations of hormones during estrus can lower the threshold in epileptic animals. Sounds plausible to me for this calf, I just don't know the likelihood of epilepsy in cattle- I assume pretty low incidence. But I did a quick google and it looks like Herefords have a few lines, it was seen in Swedish reds and Brown Swiss.

If it isn't epilepsy, the list of possibilities is very long. Rabies would be on it- everyone with livestock should keep that in mind! Toxins- I would imagine that it would be harder to tie them in with 20 day duration between initial event- if that occurred and the last. Meningitis- infectious and inflammatory causes; Structural defects of the brain/trauma; Unlikely at that age but possible- cancer; Cellular storage and myelin disorders; metabolic disorders- probably not if she seemed to be doing well otherwise; and then break those categories down further from there.

Maybe someone with a better clue will give you something useful.
I have thought along the same lines, but have not been sure how possible epilepsy may be. The grand-mother's seizures began at 10 years and while we did a post-mortem, there were failures in dealing with the brain and we never got any answers as to the cause. We put it down to possible trauma, since there had been an event which could have contributed in the previous year. I was looking for any evidence of something possibly hereditary so that I could ensure I didn't carry it on. Another daughter of the same original cow has several descendants, none of which have shown any signs of disorder.

We don't have rabies, fortunately.

I took a liver and blood sample, which I'll take to the vet today and discuss.
 
Lead could be worth considering. It will build up over time and can get very acute as they get a real taste for. Usually just an individual animal that finds a source and continually goes back to it.
Old batteries, flashing on drain pipes around shed, old painted timber with lead base paint. There are numerous possible sources of it around farm buildings and old farm rubbish dumps.
Ken
 
TexasBred":pkkv0pal said:
Puta that was a hard video to watch. I only watched a little of it.
It was hard being there, seeing her physical distress, although I concluded that for a large part of it, she was probably hardly conscious. I'm not really familiar with seizures, but I presume if there's that much disruption going on, there must be damage to the brain as well? The whole thing went on for such a long time and I expected at any moment she'd quieten - as she appeared to do at one point in my recording - but then it started up again and she looked closer and closer to dying.

If there is a hereditary component, better that she's gone; but she was a combination of two favorite cow families and was shaping up to be a fantastic animal. I'd been particularly admiring her for the last three or four weeks, with my close work with her in my insemination mob.

wbvs58":pkkv0pal said:
Lead could be worth considering. It will build up over time and can get very acute as they get a real taste for. Usually just an individual animal that finds a source and continually goes back to it.
Old batteries, flashing on drain pipes around shed, old painted timber with lead base paint. There are numerous possible sources of it around farm buildings and old farm rubbish dumps.
Ken
I've discounted lead because I can't think of any possible source. There are no buildings they can access and no known lead or lead paint anyway, the old farm dump site has been carefully tidied - and in any case, they were in that paddock for only two days over the last few months and not recently - but certainly I will give that more thought. The vet told me that test is pretty expensive, but I hope to discuss that further later today. Interesting that an animal would return to a source though - it tastes sweet, I believe?
 
Kinda reminds me of a horse having an HYPP (Hyperkalemic periodic paralysis) attack. I've only seen it twice, but they laid out like that, lots of tremors, no control of the legs (no thrashing, etc.).
 
Seems I ought to have sampled some brain. Having been through that before, I wasn't really keen to extract any and didn't have any formalin handy to fix it in anyway.

I'll give them all some Magnesium over the next few days, just in case there's been a problem with that.
 
Lead poisoning
Polio
Magnesium deficiency
Plant poisoning/other poison

Sorry I can't see the video, connection can't handle the size. I have seen cattle in seizures before when we had a polio outbreak on one of my Waikato farms. The vets initially thought it must be some plant they'd eaten, apparently the symptoms are similar.
The ryegrass staggers down this way (South Taranaki) are worse than I've ever seen it since leaving the Waikato and getting worse daily - the cows are getting Mg supplemented but the last few days have seen a little bit of head nodding as well as the general excitability, nothing collapsing yet cross fingers it won't get that far... I may roll out some silage to dilute the grass if it does look like it's going that way. That's an aside, the symptoms of ryegrass staggers really aren't on a level with what you're describing.
If you can get some bags of Mag for injection to keep on hand, it sure doesn't do any harm to give one if you see these sort of signs.
 
Try and get the vet to give you some duoject as well, to keep in the cupboard. it should go in the vein but under the skin is okay. Again, it's something that can't do any harm if it isn't needed but is effective in some cases.
 
Because we shot her in the head, I didn't think there would be much point in cutting it open to get brain samples, but in retrospect that would have been a good idea, if I'd also had some formalin on hand. A test on brain tissue might have confirmed Thiamine deficiency. After rejecting the idea of lead, I've said yes to testing for it, since it would be stupid not to eliminate it. I haven't lived here forever; who knows what there might be around the paddocks which I've never noticed?

Duoject? B1 & 12?

I will supplement Mg for the next few days, just in case. But the violence and duration of the seizure was extreme and I'd have expected (wouldn't I?) to have seen some sort of indication of something going a bit wrong beforehand? The weird behavior 20 days before with complete recovery afterwards does suggest something more particular to this animal. These are relatively well-fed, quietly farmed animals in good health and if something is awry, it's usually pretty easy to spot a change in behavior.

Whatever, if she'd survived, it would only have been for salvage and I'd have spent the next few weeks wondering if it was going to happen again. That's no way to live, I know from a year's experience with the grand-mother favorite cow!
 
Yes, b1 & b12. I'll pm you the name of the vet who handled our polio outbreak; there's a lot of similarities in what you're describing but because the symptoms get so vague there's also a lot of possible causes.
Also, we were using b1 and an appetite stimulant on everything that had seizures and it was effective, but there's a lot more information available on polio now than there was then and I'm not sure if it's still recommended as the first treatment.
There was a lot of publicity at one time about cows on farms that had been fertilised with basic slag going down with similar symptoms.

You might/might not see any signs before a seizure. I had two drop with mag deficiency in the spring, saved them both, there were no indicator signs, and the rest of the herd showed no indication of mag deficiency either. Likewise with the polio, I've seen cows drop to the ground, have a fit then stand back up again as if nothing had happened.
 
Every time I go out there, I think I'm going to find dead ones! It's a horrible thing. Not being able to pin an explanation to it easily is troubling - except my favourite is still a heritable condition which, for some reason, was worse much earlier in this heifer. I think I need a rubber ring for her brother.
 
Kathie in Thorp":2l6q8cly said:
That WAS hard to watch. Feel bad for you. Hope it's a one-time thing.

So sorry for your loss of a fine looking heifer. Sure hope you are able to discover the cause or condition that caused it.
 
Was not able to view the video. But from what you describe, could be any one of many ailments. Like Bez, BSE came to my mind. Epileptic issues as well.

Either way, I hope you can find out what it was. If something should happen to the grandmother, perhaps you could get a sample of her brain.

Sorry to hear this happened.

Katherine
 
We don't have BSE, but the country is "on surveillance" for it. When the grandmother started having seizures I discovered she was considered too old to be a candidate. We sampled her brain when I had her euthanized, but the vet mucked up the storage of the sample and we never got any answers.

The other branch of the grandmother's family appears to be fine, with no issues appearing as the cows pass the age their grandmother was.

Sorry not all could access the video - it's a big file for a short film, but was the one I put up for my vet, in a hurry the other day.
 

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