I can understand where Bovine is coming from. With people learning it seems easier for them to pick up and remember hypothetical and rare possibilities instead of doing the work that may lead to a proper diagnosis.Not picking a fight @bovine , or ganging up as seems to be the case. But to say other than doing a PM, is bad advice or waste of money is an exaggeration? If someone says on here when lambs are thriving and nearly fit and they lose a few and they have not given ovivac / heptavac, surely a fair assumption pulpey, ok far from guaranteed as if no mag buckets out and a cow is on side with legs kicking or found dead with grass soiled from legs flailing isn't, but as I said earlier, people are struggling, and I will take on board bad advice or guessing a false economy, but some things can be answered and avoid an extra cost. Out of interest, what is the accepted loss of calves from sucklers to weaning? Lambing ewe lambs to selling as shearlings? I will probably be shot down, calve 240, lost 3 calves, lambed 1300 ewe lambs, summer mastitis, on back etc and random should have been PM I lost 21, lambing I would lose a lot of lambs but all go out with one which is what I want. Cows, 2 a year?
One that irks me to no end is on a family cow forum I'm on. Numerous times a year people end up with calves - or cows - that are wobbly and have foamy mouths. I ask temp, those are huge pneumonia signs. They say breathing was fine, we think it's rabies!! Rabies can happen sure, but statistically a weaned calf in fall that's down or wobbly and has a foamy mouth will have pneumonia, not rabies. Speculating gets people nowhere except with a dead animal from a preventable illness.
In those cases it's easier to just sit on your hands and not say what you're really thinking but sometimes you just can't help it.