17 day old calf with snotty nose .....

In June we bought a blonde cow 5 months in calf.

She calved a heifer calf two weeks ago gone Tuesday.

Never had a problem until early Tuesday morning when I went in to check them and the calf had a snotty nose (clear snot, no blood or green mucus) and seemed slightly depressed. I rang the vet straight away and she said that the calf had a temperature and she could hear some crackling on her lungs but that we'd caught it early so she gave her a shot of Draxxin and a shot of loxicom.

Anyway the vet came again yesterday to blood test some ewes and we asked her to just check the calf over and he said that she still had a temp so gave us another jab of loxicom to administer today which we've just done.

She has improved slightly and is still feeding, still pooing (took a sample to the vets to be tested) and weeing and hasn't lost any ground but doesn't seem to be improving greatly either.

All of our calves are special to us but this one more so for me because she is out of one of my grandad's pedigree blonde cows so I'm really hoping she comes right.

Will also add that she's in a well ventilated shed, would love some ideas or suggestions.
 
Still not happy with her ... Now thinking it's jointill! Despite having her naval sprayed as soon as she was born and the shed being cleaned out the day before she calved.

I really don't know what else we could've done for her to prevent this. The Draxxin should still be working and she had another jab of loxicom on Friday but seems to now be losing her appetite (although she's had muck and pee through her which all looked fine)

Had her muck examined and that came back as fine with no bugs etc in it.

Her left knee joint appears swollen this morning and she looks like she's holding it slightly. Initially when I went in to get her up she was very stiff and almost disorientated. I don't suppose there's a lot more we can do for now regarding antibiotics and anti inflammatory as she's had all she can have for now. Is it worth calling the vet out on a Sunday or do we just ring tomorrow with regards to the fact that she's already been jabbed for this that and the other. What could they do other than a second opinion? I'm absolutely out of my head
 
So, initially she rallied and was much happier with her Tuesday and Wednesday.

This morning I went into her and she was absolutely laid out. Tried to stand her up and she just flopped over. Took her temperature and it was 34 degrees celcius so immediately got a blanket over her and a heat lamp installed and rang the vet. Literally about 5 minutes after I've done this she starts sitting up and trying to stand up! The thing is, the shed isn't cold, it's well ventilated but not cold. She was laid out in a warm corner when I found her, honestly can't understand how she's got so cold. I'm worried that it's something underlying now, we've had all this bother with her and at best she's still been steady.

Vet arrives, puts calf on a drip and injects various other things into the pipe. Advises to feed electrolyte solution and then get the calf to suck it's mother as soon as she can stand.

Once the calf had all of the drip we got her straight up an she sucked with gusto which was amazing to see as we thought she was 3 parts dead this morning.

Her temp is now up to 37.5, she's still under the heat lamp but last time we went in she wasn't interested in sucking. She's puffing and blowing still and the vet said that her lungs didn't sound fantastic but not terrible either.

Going to go out shortly to try and get her to suck again.

Honestly don't know what to do or what I'm going to wake up to tomorrow.
 

GenuineRisk

Member
Location
Somerset
Lack of colostrum?? Pure blondes not notorious for having a surplus of milk

Would agree with perhaps low quality colostrum - you’d have thought four months was long enough for the dam to have produced any antibodies necessary when arriving in a new environment but maybe it wasn’t. With foals we want to insure, we have to do an iGg test after 12hours, before 24 to check antibody levels - if too low, it’s either a plasma transfusion or we wait it out til foal is 30 days and is insurable again. Obviously too expensive a process for the average pedigree calf ! If you breed the dam again, I’d maybe want to top her calf up with colostrum from another cow in herd if any in freezer at the time.

Feel for you - hope she survives and isn’t compromised.
 
Yes Ive been thinking the same with regards to colostrum. The dam is in fab condition and has done the calf well so far (that's the funny thing, despite being poorly she's gained weight and grown tremendously).

Will definitely keep in mind to have some in the freezer.

She's massively improved on yesterday morning but still not right, she wasn't interested in a feed at 11:30 so we went back in at 3:00am and she sucked like a train. Not interested so far since 6:00am.

So hope we get her right. It's just one thing after another. A lesson to learn though, never ever underestimate the importance of colostrum!
 

milkloss

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Sussex
I was wondering if you might have some bvd amongst the animals? We had it rear its head and the calves born clean will catch bvd (transient infection) in the first few weeks and go a bit like this.
 
I don't think it's BVD, she's never scoured and we haven't had any problems with it in the past (touch wood).

She also had her muck tested a week or so ago and it came back as fine.
 

GenuineRisk

Member
Location
Somerset
To be honest, if she fed well at 03:00, I wouldn’t expect her to be hungry til maybe mid morning. So different to foals, who you’d have to feed every 2hours 24/7 for first two - three weeks - we very occasionally get either a prem or dopey calf who for first couple of days can be slow to get sucking. As long as they’ve had plenty of colostrum, after first day or so, we leave them to get hungry!
 
She still hasn't sucked. Have managed to get some electrolytes into her and she's still very steady on her feet and not dehydrated, temperature was 37.9 when last checked an hour or so again. We've go the calf in the same she's as her Dam but in a separate pen so she can go to the heat lamp when she pleases.

Dam is a wonderful mother but she licks the calf until she's soaking and we're thinking this is maybe how she's got so cold? I've suggested putting a calf jacket on her when we put her in with Veronica so that she doesn't lick her quite as much.

On our way to vets to get some more anti inflammatory
 
Yes Ive seen that before :( I know it's instinct too but it's really not helping - the weather is so strange too, it's been boiling through the day and very cool on a night which doesn't help matters.

She's had a lot of (normal) muck through her, some more electrolytes and has even sucking. Doesn't sound like she's huffing and puffing as much as she was which is good an she doesn't have any snot at her nose which is also good.

Fingers crossed.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.0%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 35.1%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.0%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,292
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top