A dead 4 months calf

[Saffy]

This morning a four month old bull calf was dead in the field which was a big shock. Especially as he was to be our next stock bull. Nothing obvious killed him, no outward signs at all, is it likely to be worth getting a post mortem done, or just throwing good money after bad?

The only indication there may have been something wrong was his ears were down two days ago but he appeared to be in deep sleep and when I went across, he got up, stretched and seemed fine - I am kicking myself now!

Stephanie

[Mark Bowles]

If i remember correct you feed mag rolls, so it would not be staggers, any signs of ground disturbance around where you found him?
At that age to loose one is a real blow, post mortem could cost £120+vat, difficult choice!

[Saffy]

No signs whatever of ground disturbance Mark or anything else that I can see.

Stephanie

[Anthony Henman]

Hi Stephanie

that is very sad to hear, if it were to happen to me I would definitely get a post mortem done for piece of mind and just in case it could be anything which could reoccur in other stock.

All the best

Anthony

[Broomcroft]

Sorry to hear that Stephanie. Cattle are so slow it's a real knock when you lose something, especially a special one.

Pneumonia maybe? Who knows?

I suppose post mortem might tell you something if the carcass is fresh, but I have to say we've had loads of post mortems done by the VLA, all with sheep and lambs, and only once have we had any information back that has helped us and that just said it probably ate too much. Maybe we've just been unlucky. Mind you, our sheep usually die on Friday or over the weekend so are a bit cooked by the time the VLA get them to be fair to them. I'd still do a PM though.

[wagra dexters]

Stephanie, I am so sorry. It always seems to be the ones we have plans for. Was this the little dun fellow, or another one?
We have only ever lost one calf at that age, actually he is the only calf we've ever lost between birth and 2yo. That was from a copperhead snake-bite.
What would make a calf droop his ears down? Both or only one of them? I've never seen that.
Margaret

[Louisa Gidney]

I had a short-leg bull calf die unexpectedly at about 12 weeks old last year. I boned out one front and one hind leg and found the acetabular symphysis was bridging over with new bone growth on the lateral border. While this in itself would not have been fatal, it strongly suggested that there was a serious developmental defect going on somewhere else. This was reassuring in that it is unlikely anything could have been done to save him and it saved me getting a professional opinion to tell me the same thing.

[Saffy]

Well it was hard to decide whether to have a pm done or not and when we asked our vet to do it, he persuaded us that it was best not to as we would be unlikely to get a result. His advice was to be there when the hunt skinned it to see if it was blackleg, and look for blistering . Well there was hardly any blistering at all, and the bloke that did the skinning showed Chris other carcasses that were the same but when he cut into the back leg there was black marbling through it, which we assume means it was blackleg?

Our vet had advised us to vaccinate rest of the youngsters as a precaution anyway just in case, so we will pick up the vaccine tomorrow.

Stephanie

[Broomcroft]

I assume that will be the 7 in 1 (or however many) vaccine Stephanie? I don't do it but reading about Blackleg, maybe I will in the future before turnout.

[Denise]

Hi Saffy - so sorry to hear that - we routinely vacc with 7 in 1 over here.

U know the old saying but - its always the good 'uns that go early! So he must have been a verry nice animal!

[wagra dexters]

Denise, I am always surprised to learn how many don't vaccinate. Their reasons range from the cost, "can't stick needles in", "never think about it", to ethics (organic, biodynamic, homa-therapy, and most recently, ayurveda).
Then there are those who use 5in1, and who can blame them if they aren't using AI? 7in1 is twice the price and their humans probably aren't going to get lepto anyway.
A friend who has hundreds of commercial Herefords told us he was "going organic". A few years later he moved a big mob, still on the same station but to a different type of country, and lost too many from pulpy kidney. He soon returned back to common sense.
Some people don't get that there is a lot more to 'organic' than not spending money. We aren't organic because we can't afford to be. Our soils all blew out into the Pacific millions of years ago. If we don't fertilize our poverty stricken shallow marginal country we would not be able to feed a kangaroo, let alone a cow. (But, we have also got about 300 acres of native forest & scrub corridor where native wild-life can survive, which probably makes us hypocrits.)
Margaret

[Minnie]

Stephanie, so sorry to hear of the little bull. A terrible blow.

Holy moly Margaret I had to look up 'ayurveda' well what can I say... I know our old neighbour used to say his cattle were organic because he did nothing, yep nothing other than send them off to the sales. He didn't understand that, doing nothing wasn't organic and the 'true organic' people do so much work.

We're the hate giving needles brigade, but you have to get through it or over it for the animal.

I got a bit better having had our cat very sick with diabetes last year and brought him home after 5 days on a drip and still needing fluid, so having to inject fluid (sub cut) into him and give the insulin as well as blood testing, sort of got me a bit over it a little.

Coupled with the numerous drenching for the alpacas got things easier as well, although I'm still not mad on intramuscular needles

Sometimes things do happen before vaxing, and it's a terrible blow when that happens I'm sure. We've been more than lucky, as we have been a bit late at times and between 7 in 1 for cattle and 5 in 1 for alpacas it's a juggle.

Vicki

[ann]

I'm really sorry to hear you have lost a calf, the trouble with blackleg is that unless you know the history of your farm, you often find out the hard way. My farm was originally a marsh and we know the previous owner lost cattle from blackleg so we always vaccinate the young calves in their first year and this seems to give them the protection needed. I was a bit late this year as we only did them all on sunday along with sorting out a few missing tags only to find one of the calves had pulled his tag out that morning totally splitting his ear. I hate to see cattle with split ears and have not had one do that for a long time.

I hope this is your first and last experience of this virus as it seems to give no warning and usually takes the best.

[Broomcroft]

I was a bit late this year as we only did them all on sunday along with sorting out a few missing tags only to find one of the calves had pulled his tag out that morning totally splitting his ear. I hate to see cattle with split ears and have not had one do that for a long time.

Just had the same. Tagged a cracking little calf just a few days ago, and she now has a split ear, and there's hardly anywhere to put another tag, so she'll stay with one tag till she's bigger. Tagging at an early age IMHO is cruelty to animals imposed on us by law. They are far too big, even the smaller ones.

I have considered going back to Fearing tags which I was told come out instead of tearing the ear, at least they used to. But they certainly came out easily and very regularly.

I now fit tiny little management tags, I think they are small sheep tags, at birth just with a simple number on it. Then I tag as late as possible with proper tags. But it still causes problems in a lot of calves.

[Saffy]

Thank you all for the interesting replies.

Believe it or not his mum is still yelling for him but less often.

Yes Margaret it is the one out of the old dun cow but he was black, I had hoped to keep him for my next bull.

The vaccine we gave was simply a blackleg vaccine only.

I know the history of the farm pretty well and there has been no blackleg in the last 40 to 50 years but I think there was a case back in my grandads day and maybe pushing out a few dead trees stirred something up? Or is disturbing the soil of a "never" ploughed sward bringing blackleg back to the surface and causing a new outbreak decades later just an old wives tale?

Stephanie