Cattle Health Problem

[coppertop]

A neighbour has had some weird stuff
with 3-4 month old calves. They are out
on grass looking healthy one day and
dead the next. A Post Mortem showed
blood in the lungs but all other organs
looked healthy.
He lost six calves then everything was
fine for a month. After that one calf
after the other would have droopy ears,
he would get them in and either treat
them with Resflor or Biomycin and most
of them perked up in a day. He has one
that ended up with several abcesses
which drained, she is healthy but has
patches of skin missing, and he has
another that has a severe eye infection.
The vets cannot pin point anything so he
keeps checking them several times a day.
No new sick ones for well over a month .
He is lucky he has pasture at home and
they weren't out on some remote pasture
where checking and treating them would
have been a lot more difficult.

[grassfarmer]

Thanks for all the replies - things are looking up - haven't lost anything further although 3 are still pretty sick. We will treat with long and short acting penicillan and banamin. I think they will all pull through though don't know how it will affect their subsequent performance.
Really looks like the blue/green algae is most likely cause. None of the poison weeds look likely due to the time lapse between removing some from the swamp and getting the first case.
If affected both solid red and solid white coated cattle in about the same proportions. The heart of the one we autopsied was in good shape.
The cattle were not overheating, had plenty shade.
Unfortunately the algae thing is hard to prove by sampling - I'm told it can change from toxic to non-toxic in 24 hours. Plus in this case guess which pothole/swamp/slough they actually drank out of as there are water sources everywhere. As well we had 2.25 inches of rain on Monday/Tuesday which would dilute some pools and also flooded others when the river came up. Cows/calves were unaffected and less than 25% of the feeders showed any signs. Maybe only one group drank out of a particular pool of water? maybe the cows are smarter than the yearlings and the calves likely drink enough milk that they aren't taking enough water on?
Still a bit of a mystery and it looks unlikely that we will definitively pinpoint the source. Lesson learned though - I just won't rent that pasture again as it's just not worth the risk.

[kato]

Glad to hear it's calmed down. That's pretty scarey stuff. Hopefully it's finished.

[farmers_son]

Did you consider acute nitrate poisoning?

See:
http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/212300.htm

[grassfarmer]

Another interesting suggestion Farmers_son but again it doesn't really seem to fit. The land in question is never fertilised, it's natural riparian pasture so the plants would be unlikely to have high nitrate levels I would think. Also I saw no mention of photo-sensitivity in the article which is the major symptom visible in our case. Maybe the blood work will tell us more when it comes back.

[DogPatch]

You have treated them for 8-way, but what about Haemophilus?

Heres a link that might explain the congested lungs (Pasturella) and maybe why it was the younger animals if they hadn't been vaccinated? The photosensitivy would just be a result of the fever / pneumonia / sunburn


http://www.anslab.iastate.edu/Class/AnS426/transfer%20skaar/References%20and%20Materials%20For%20Beef/Cow%20Calf/Haemophilus.htm

[grassfarmer]

Again the vet ruled that out. There were no pneumonia symptoms and no fever either - temps were elevated but surprisingly very little above normal. That did occur to us though as this is the first year our yearlings have only had 8-way. Previously they were done with Somnus-PH as well.

[blackjack]

grassfarmer...did your vaccinations cover red water...my brother had some problems with land up in your area...they started vaccinating for that and have had no more problems since

[kato]

I've never heard of redwater... I found a good article on a bison site that has a good explanation.

http://www.bisoncentre.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=88&It emid=288

Redwater is unheard of in our part of the country. According to this article, this seems to be a clostridial thing. Since pretty much everyone vaccinates with 8 way, maybe that's why we've never heard of it here.

If this is what it is, it sounds like your treatment protocol was exactly what is called for.

[grassfarmer]

Redwater is something I'm familiar with as it occurred in Scotland. Apart from the one animal there was no evidence of "red water". Again the vet ruled it unlikely as the other symptoms didn't really fit. It is one of those annoying outbreaks that nothing exactly fits the symptoms. However I think they are all on the mend - 2 or 3 still fairly sick but all getting better in my opinion.