CCN Polyencephalomalacia

[chipchap]

Anybody on here with any experience? Young suckler calves 3-4 months.

 

[chipchap]

Two sudden deaths this week and three calves blind and poorly.

vet is involved, but would be interested to hear any experiences of others. My previous experience of CCN resulted in the animals dieing eventually, although this time things are looking a bit better so far.

suspect Clostridium sporogenes.

 

[bean]

Had a bunch of bucket reared blue stirks with it in winter, jabbed with vitimans can't remember which but got better. Vet thought it was caused by not eating enough fiber so causing them to be a bit acidotic

 

[chipchap]

Had a bunch of bucket reared blue stirks with it in winter, jabbed with vitimans can't remember which but got better. Vet thought it was caused by not eating enough fiber so causing them to be a bit acidotic

I tend to think it is caused by the cows milking well and the calves having lots of lush grass as well; but isn’t this common at this time of year?

Certainly the calf that we did a PM exam on had milk in its abomasum, so it had suckled within a few hours of sudden death. Also evidence of septicaemia.
A calf that was very poorly first thing this morning has responded well to Alamycin, although still unable to see properly.

 

[primmiemoo]

NADIS Animal Health Skills - Nervous Diseases in Cattle

NADIS is a unique online based animal health resource for farmers, vets and SQPs. The information is written by veterinary experts, peer-reviewed and presented in a practical format with a high visual clinical content to improve disease awareness and highlight disease prevention.

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There's a brief description of CCN in cattle in the list above. Treatment is with thiamine, which the Vet should know. Antib's won't necessarily crack it.
There are also other diseases which show superficially similar symptoms.

We've had CCN in sheep before, decades ago. After changing the miller, we just don't get it any more, but I don't think it would be a like-for-like comparison with your calves.

 

[Bramble]

Had it in young dairy heifers once. No idea why it came on. Massive doses of Vit B stopped/cured it. 2 died out of 70, a few appeared blind but this was reversed by the Vit B, some in the group weren’t affected at all but had lower doses of Vit B as a precaution.

The symptoms looked very like listeriosis, which is what we treated the first one that died for. The second one that died was pm’d which picked up CCN

 

[chipchap]

Turns out it’s Lead poisoning.

scratching our heads a bit, but have a suspicion I may report on later.

 

[Formatted]

Sorry to hear that, must be some quantity to get at calves at 4 months old. Thought it needed a long time to build up?