Bleeding calf syndrome

[Barley grower]

Had a calf passing blood this morning, vet says it's probably bleeding calf syndrome. It's temperature was normal and still very lively and sucking ok, but breathing a bit laboured. Have treated with micotil, metacam, steroids and vecoxin just in case it's coccidiosis.

This is the first time we seen it is there anything else we could try or is it's fate inevitable??

 

[J-ham]

Out of the dozen or so bleeding calves I've had, only one recovered.
Most of them had similar treatment to what you describe. Steroids seem to be the preferred treatment by our vets.

The fact that your calf's temperature is normal would give me some hope that it's not bleeding calf syndrome. All the ones I've seen had raging high temperatures.

Is it bleeding from anywhere else? Into its eyes, mouth, nose, or from injection sites? Those are all sure signs, but some don't bleed externally at all.

What age is the calf? It tends to strike at about 10 to 14 days, which I think would be a bit young for it to be Cocci.

Metacam should help it to stay on it's feet and keep sucking. If it can do that then I'd say it has a fair chance.

Fingers crossed it comes right.

 

[Downtrodden Dad]

only had one survive and it was very ill for weeks. Usually find them dead the next day whatever you do so the fact its still alive is a good sign.
We (touchwood havent) seen any for a while now. Its a depressing thing to see, and you feel so helpless. Calves can die fast enough without this to deal with.

 

[Barley grower]

Out of the dozen or so bleeding calves I've had, only one recovered.
Most of them had similar treatment to what you describe. Steroids seem to be the preferred treatment by our vets.

The fact that your calf's temperature is normal would give me some hope that it's not bleeding calf syndrome. All the ones I've seen had raging high temperatures.

Is it bleeding from anywhere else? Into its eyes, mouth, nose, or from injection sites? Those are all sure signs, but some don't bleed externally at all.

What age is the calf? It tends to strike at about 10 to 14 days, which I think would be a bit young for it to be Cocci.

Metacam should help it to stay on it's feet and keep sucking. If it can do that then I'd say it has a fair chance.

Fingers crossed it comes right.

Still on its feet this morning... But sure enough it's one of the best char bull calves, just a waiting game I guess

 

[J-ham]

Good to hear it's still on the go.

Yep, that seems to be the way with bleeding calves unfortunately, always the biggest, strongest ones that get hit hardest.

My theory is that because the antibodies in the colostrum attack the calf's bone marrow, then the strong calves that suck a large amount in the first few hours take it worse than weaker calves that don't get a lot.

If the mother is a good cow then you could breed her again, just make sure the next calf doesn't suckle her for the first 48 hours after birth. Milk the colostrum off her and dump it, feed the calf with powdered colostrum then stick it on the cow after a couple of days.

I've had success doing this but it is a bit of a faff, if the cow is nothing special then culling might be the easiest way.

 

[T C]

Don't want to be negative but had our first one this year yesterday, vet put it down. Out of a Sim cow I use to try and breed replacement bulls.
Have had around 15 over the last 5 years (out of 90 cows). 1 we did treat one and seemed to rally before dying.
We cull the cow as @J-ham says they will repeat.
Did you use pregsure BVD vaccine ?
There should be a group action against Pfizer (bleeding calf accounts for about 80% of our live calf losses) - they were paying for a PM and disposal (waiting to hear if that is still the case).

 

[Northeastfarmer]

Don't want to be negative but had our first one this year yesterday, vet put it down. Out of a Sim cow I use to try and breed replacement bulls.
Have had around 15 over the last 5 years (out of 90 cows). 1 we did treat one and seemed to rally before dying.
We cull the cow as @J-ham says they will repeat.
Did you use pregsure BVD vaccine ?
There should be a group action against Pfizer (bleeding calf accounts for about 80% of our live calf losses) - they were paying for a PM and disposal (waiting to hear if that is still the case).

i thought pregsure had been pulled because of potentially causing this?

 

[T C]

i thought pregsure had been pulled because of potentially causing this?

Yes pulled but these are cows vaccinated with it before 2010.

 

[J-ham]

Unfortunately cows are susceptible for the rest of their lives once they have been vaccinated.

I recon a lot of people will have had bleeding calves and not realised. If the calf doesn't bleed externally then it can look just like pneumonia until you PM them.

What really annoys me is that we used Pregsure in good faith as a pro-active measure to try to prevent losses, but inadvertently caused more financial loss than we ever got from BVD.

It's a shame, as in all other regards, Pregsure was a really good vaccine.

 

[Barley grower]

Don't want to be negative but had our first one this year yesterday, vet put it down. Out of a Sim cow I use to try and breed replacement bulls.
Have had around 15 over the last 5 years (out of 90 cows). 1 we did treat one and seemed to rally before dying.
We cull the cow as @J-ham says they will repeat.
Did you use pregsure BVD vaccine ?
There should be a group action against Pfizer (bleeding calf accounts for about 80% of our live calf losses) - they were paying for a PM and disposal (waiting to hear if that is still the case).

Yes we used the pregsure vaccine in the past, it's worrying that it's still causing these problems years after. The vet mentioned that there may be compensation but let's hope it's not needed

 

[Barley grower]

....Well , as feared the calf was dead this morning. vet doing a pm this afternoon but almost certainly bleeding calf syndrome. Anyone successful claimed compensation? The mother will have to be culled as well not worth the risk again, only good thing is she was one of the wildest cow we have so time she was away.

 

[Downtrodden Dad]

You must send samples off to Pfizer through your vet so they can confirm it, that way if any compensation does become available you have proof not just a suspicion. We stopped PM ing any suspects we had as I decided it wouldn't lead to anything. If any money was dished out I wont stand a chance on those I self diagnosed.You're right to get rid of the mother they do do it again.