• Welcome to The Farming Forum!

    As part of this update, we have made a change to the login and registration process. If you are experiences any problems, please email [email protected] with the details so we can resolve any issues.

Calves dieing

fiat100

Member
Anyone have any suggestions why my calves are dieing. They are calf down no problem and all get good colostrum within 4 hrs . All appear fit and healthy but within 48hrs are dead with no signs why. There are not scouring and the cows are getting dry cow nuts plus lick buckets. It's just started all of a sudden with the last 3 calves. I have the latest dead one away to a lab to see if they find anything
 

Drago

Member
Location
Cornwall
Do you have multiple cows in your calving yard?

My bet would be ecoli k99. You may just have one cow carrying and shedding the ecoli but showing no symptoms herself.

The first sign tends to be the calf has a stone cold nose, the next sign is it's dead.
They can go from looking happy as Larry sooking milk to laying down flat out dead in 60 seconds.
 

Llmmm

Member
Ecoli i bet you dont vaccinate even if they live they are a real struggle calves which are infected so young could have very little immunity from colostrum.My advice is vaccinate straight away
 

fiat100

Member
Thanks for the replys. Calves all get 10% of their bodyweight in colostrum which is tested. They seem a wee bit tired or lazy in the first 48hrs
 
K99 was the cause in our case. Years since we suffered, but what I remember is below.

It stopped as suddenly as it started. Whole drama lasted about two weeks. We only used the expensive stuff for a couple of weeks.

Immediate response was to give an oral tube of something horrendously expensive as soon after birth as possible , but I cannot remember what it was , but was a miracle instant preventer. ( May have been Locatim but I’m not sure, think it was in a syringe when we used it. )
Clean calving pens as often as possible, spread a liberal layer of lime before rebedding.

Vaccinate all calving cows and heifers with Rotavac or similar, at least for a while.

Hope you find the cure that works for you it’s sole destroying while it’s going on.
 

Sparkymark

Member
Sounds like ecoli to be within 2 days.
Horrible to watch calves die with it. Vaccinate with Bovigen now and never lost any since.
Takes 3 weeks minimum to work, so could you calve your cows in a clean temporary calving area for now?
 

How is your SFI 24 application progressing?

  • havn't been invited to apply

    Votes: 29 36.3%
  • have been invited to apply

    Votes: 14 17.5%
  • applied but not yet accepted

    Votes: 29 36.3%
  • agreement up and running

    Votes: 8 10.0%

Webinar: Expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive offer 2024 -26th Sept

  • 2,441
  • 50
On Thursday 26th September, we’re holding a webinar for farmers to go through the guidance, actions and detail for the expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer. This was planned for end of May, but had to be delayed due to the general election. We apologise about that.

Farming and Countryside Programme Director, Janet Hughes will be joined by policy leads working on SFI, and colleagues from the Rural Payment Agency and Catchment Sensitive Farming.

This webinar will be...
Back
Top