young calf down, head back

[Lakercom]

Hi, I am new to this forum. I have a week old calf flat on its side with a low body temperature, no scours, and she has her head tilted back. She will also flail with her legs a little bit when disturbed. I suspect a lung infection as her breathing sounds a little rough once in awhile. Initially she had one swollen back hock/knee so navel ill may be a contributor but the swelling there has gone down. Over the last two days I have given Nuflor, tubed milk, sub-cu fluid - 2 liters, and now I have her on clean shavings with a blankie and water bottle. I think this is all I can do with her. Any ideas? Her eyes look somewhat sunken but I don't think she is seriously dehydrated as the skin springs back reasonably quick when tented. I did originally treat the swollen knee joint with Calfspan pills (sulfamethazine?). I will give it a second dose of Nuflor (Florphenicol) tomorrow if she makes it. The temperature has been mostly 35 - 36 C (sorry to all those in the Fahrenheit scale, normal is 37,38'ish).

The calf is skinny and has not nursed for several days judging by the Mom. When I tube it the calf has its jaw clenched and does not want anything in its mouth so I am avoiding tubing it anymore. Initially my brother thought the calf was starving (first impression) but I don't think that is the problem.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Eyes sunken, skinny - sounds starved & dehydrated to me. I would TUBE it with electrolites, than couple hours later, tube with milk replacer. If temp is low, it's probably too far gone.
Where's Milkmaid - she's our savior when a calf is past saving!

 

[double v]

Did the calf ever get it's first milk, sound like no immune system along with the lack of milk, water and nutrients sounds like a tough go. You can hope to bring this one back but it sounds like mother nature(fittest) has got this one. Key is the first 6 hours after birth and if this calf had hock issues I'm wondering how effective it was in nursing after birth? Good luck hope the others come out healthier.

 

[rockridgecattle]

I would first call or take the calf to the vet.


Nuflor and calfspan are to differnt drugs and can work against each other.

for the joint infectin nuflor and an anti inflam, check the navil and get tough with this. Very hard to treat and requires agood week of treatment and monitoring

for the lung raspyness, could be pnemonia but when you tubed the calf, did you get any in his lungs...nuflor and an anti inflamatory will work for pnemonia

MUST tube the calf. it is dehydated. Sunken eyes and low body temp...dehydrated. An anti inflam will help with the swelling from tubing. They may fight and clench but if you have cattle you gotta do what you have to do to save the life of a calf. By not doing it because it fights it the calf is given a death sentence. DO IT!

Calf span is a sulfa drug. Used with trivetrin or borgal or trimidox is a good scour treatment.

 

[randiliana]

SELENIUM!! These are classic signs of selenium deficiency. Get some selenium/vitamin E and give it the shot for Treatment. And, don't quit tubing it. If you do it WILL die. You are not in the business to do what the calf wants, you either feed it or it dies, it is that simple. If the problem is Selenium, the calf should show significant progress within 4 hours of the dose. Whatever the case, the selenium is unlikely to cause more damage than what is already going on.

A vet or vet's opinion would also be a good idea. If you can have the vet look at it, he can suggest things that we may never consider. Both because of his training, and the fact that he can SEE what is going on.

Good luck.

 

[Lakercom]

Thank you for the information. The calf had selenium and Vitamin A, D, & E within a day or two of birth and we give our whole herd selenium with their salt and mineral. We (family) learned that one the hard way 30 years ago when we first got into the business.

Thank you for reminding me of the importance of insuring the newborn gets its colostrum. It is easy to overlook this when the calves are coming fast. I will tube it some electrolyte ASAP and wait a few hours and tube it some milk. I was careful tubing the milk/colostrum on Monday to avoid getting any in the lungs. The eyes are looking a little better now compared to Monday. The calf passed some water last night.

With the price of calves in the 80 - 90 cent (US$) range and large animal vets scarce in our region (Canada, central B.C.) we do not have the ease of access to vets but do plan on phoning one. Can anybody suggest a good veterinary book to keep on hand for info? The one we have is too brief and is about thirty years old. Popular Mechanics published it. I realize the Internet is handy for this but a physical book is so much more useful for quick reference, especially since my parents are in their seventies and not very good with the Internet.

 

[rockridgecattle]

You can also go on the pfizer website. It has alot of info on there. Calf span is a pfizer product can tell you about it on the web site.
go to you local ag office and talk to the livestock guy, he will be able to help with the herd heath manual.
I know alberta put one out any years ago and through a stroke of luck were able to aquire one. It's abit out dated but we also get alot of info from our vet.
We have spent time cultivating a relationship with her on a proffesional basis and that has been helpful during the tough financial times, in the way of phone advice. Not going at it alone, using a vet for drug supplies, help in solving problems, will be benificial when having a problem that you can not figure out. They are more readily willing to share their wealth of knowledge when you suppport them.
we have learned the hard way that even though prices are in the tank on cattle, sometimes it costs more if we do not make use of the vet...have that t-shirt. Call is free on a land line, vet bill might have been maybe $100.00 depending on how much you were willing to spend.
And that is the key...how much. In tough times set a limit on what to spend per animal.

 

[angie1]

The calf is still alive?! :shock:
Whats the temp on it?

 

[Alice]

I never have able to accurately tell if a calf was dehydrated by the "tent skin" test. Eyes, I could tell...skin, nope. When I came upon calves in that shape, the first thing I did was tube electrolytes. Then I tented the skin and checked for sunk in eyes.

I hope your little calf pulls thru. Sometimes they can absolutely amaze you with their will to live.

Alice

 

[Lakercom]

The calf died two nights ago. Sorry for not getting to this forum sooner. There was some good news at the time, however. Another downer calf I discovered about the same time recovered from some bad scours. I tubed that one with 5 Liters of electrolyte in 30 hours and presto, up and around.

I think the dead was due to a triple whammy of joint ill, malnourishment, and, pneumonia. In hindsight, we should have taken it to the vet in town (45 minutes) immediately and he would probably have put it on IV. The low body temperature was probably the best indicator for that. The last temperature I got for it two nights ago was 35.0 C.

Thank you for the links, the Merck online vet manual looks good.

We are having a problem with some downer cows but that will be for another thread.

 

[hillsdown]

Sorry to hear that.
I have had a few that by the time you treat them they are too far gone (usually it happens over night and it only takes a couple of hours to do them in) and the only thing that would even give it a chance was an IV .Even then they don't make it sometimes. Sounds like the little thing just had no immunity system and couldn't fight anything off. It always is heart wrenching though after you try your darnedest and do all that you can but still lose them.

 

[milkmaid]

I never have able to accurately tell if a calf was dehydrated by the "tent skin" test. Eyes, I could tell...skin, nope. When I came upon calves in that shape, the first thing I did was tube electrolytes. Then I tented the skin and checked for sunk in eyes.

I've heard that signs of dehydration don't show up until the calf has lost 6% of its body weight in fluids, most dehydrated calves have lost 10%, and 12% is where kidney failure starts becoming an issue. I just presume they're dehydrated if they're scouring, since it's evident that the skin test isn't going to tell me much until it's almost too late.

Randi- thanks for chiming in; knew I'd heard of those symptoms in connection with something important, but I don't have any of my vet books with me here at school (when you're expected to fit all your belongings in a dorm room about the size of an 'ol farm truck's front seat, you leave everything but the essentials at home, LOL). Makes MM pretty well useless on the major and unusual problems when she doesn't have any of her reference books.

As far as real vet books... I saw the most fascinating one the other day published by Sanders... it was called Diseases of Dairy Cattle, but given that dairy cows have every problem beef cows do and then some, I suspect it would be everything the average cattleman needed and then some. :lol: I'm having it sent back home... wouldn't get a lick of studying done if I had it sent here. :lol2:

 

[Lakercom]

I remember this calf when only a day or two old. It was off to the side from the others and hung its head down while standing ....... I always remember it standing, until I found it flat out, half dead. As fate would have it, it went down on my day off and others never patrolled the barn very well.

This behaviour (always standing) is what a pneumonia cow did that we had once. It stood wheezing for several days, off food, until it recovered.

It is hard to know all the calves' situation when you get up to 10 a day. I mistakenly assumed if the calf was up, not bawling, and the mother was conscientious then all was well. I should have noticed the Mom's plump bag. We try to cycle all our new calves through the barn for 48 hours unless the calf is strong, the weather is good, and the mother is experienced. In that case they go directly to the new (calved out) herd.

My brother inspected the gut post mortem and it had the tubed milk in its belly (from 24+ hours prior to death) but not in the intestine. I expect the digestive system was already shutting down with the low body temperature, and all, when I found it 36 hours prior to death.