Suck Calf Not Thriving

bbam

We have a pen of calves, bucket fed.
Occasional milk scour but nothing much and it has all cleared up itself..

One calf (5-6 weks old) required synolux tablets for a few days and he dried up fine..
Since then he isn't doing well, comes to the feeder sucks slowly and will eat meal with the others, again slowly, eats at fresh straw when bedded. Gets up and stretches from resting but sometimes stands with a hump on him..

Thhere was some navel sucking going on but it has stopped as we increased meal allowance post milk.

Will administer multivit today and have test during the week so vet will check it then..

Any other ideas what could be wrong or what we could do??

leg wax

for curiosity take his temp and see is it slightly raised.

stanflt

do a blood test for bvd-just to be on the safe side

bbam

leg wax wrote: »

for curiosity take his temp and see is it slightly raised.

I haven't taken it every day but when i have it's always been below 39..
Trace of scour again today so isolated him again..
Will get something other than synolux tabs..

funny man

bbam wrote: »

I haven't taken it every day but when i have it's always been below 39..
Trace of scour again today so isolated him again..
Will get something other than synolux tabs..

I'd go in with bimastat very good for older calves:
Recommended dose: 4ml per 10kg body
weight twice daily. it contains 60mg/kg sulphadiazine, 10mg/kg neomycin and 42mg/kg kaolin, give it twice daily for 3-5 days.
40 mls of vecoxan may help also.

LostCovey

funny man wrote: »

I'd go in with bimastat very good for older calves:
Recommended dose: 4ml per 10kg body
weight twice daily. it contains 60mg/kg sulphadiazine, 10mg/kg neomycin and 42mg/kg kaolin, give it twice daily for 3-5 days.
40 mls of vecoxan may help also.

You're some impressive vet funny man.

Prescribing for an animal you haven't seen is rather naughty. But I suppose you know exactly what you're doing.

What are you treating it for, exactly?

LostCovey

funny man

LostCovey wrote: »

You're some impressive vet funny man.

Prescribing for an animal you haven't seen is rather naughty. But I suppose you know exactly what you're doing.

What are you treating it for, exactly?

LostCovey

Yea your right i probably am bang out of order, i'm not qualified acedemically to diagnose conditions in stock, but from a life times experience of rearing several thousands of calves, i just couldn't resist giving out advice especially when the animal isn't very sick (normal temp, feeding,etc,.)
The reason i recommended BIMASTAT as i have become a huge fan as you may have noted by my inclusion of the ingrediants of same, the neomycin is an antibiotic, as is sulphadiazine, but Kaolin is widely used in drugs that are used to treat various gastrointestinal problems. The smoothening properties of the clay provide relief to irritation in the stomach. It is also known to absorb and kill the bacteria and viruses in the body, so people used to ingest kaolin powder in old days when they suffered from stomach disorders. It also absorbs the excessive contamination in the stomach and that helps in curing diarrhea and other intestinal problems. It is also known to cure abdominal pain.
Kaolin poultice uses include soothing bruises, reduce swelling, absorbing pus and cleaning wounds, etc. So it is used to treat various skin problems and injuries in animals as well.

The vecoxan is to cover for coccidiosis, while the Bimastat will help to kill any bacteria and aid in the repair of the intestine.

Sorry if i portrayed that i was diagnosing a problem, i will refrain from replying to any threads on sick animals, sometimes i get carried away.

bbam

In fairness I was looking from advice from experienced farmers, thanks for your input... I will have the vet look at the calf on Wed when she's out for the test, I didn't expect vetinary advice here, just experience.

He's keeping well hydrated, bawling at feed time but today not as interested in feeding thismorning took milk only but very slowly..

reilig

I get great results from Bimastat too. Its great for those grey milk scours - One dose usually does the trick and can prevent the calf becoming dehydrated and leading to a much bigger probllem for which the vet has to be called.

funny man wrote: »

Yea your right i probably am bang out of order, i'm not qualified acedemically to diagnose conditions in stock, but from a life times experience of rearing several thousands of calves, i just couldn't resist giving out advice especially when the animal isn't very sick (normal temp, feeding,etc,.)
The reason i recommended BIMASTAT as i have become a huge fan as you may have noted by my inclusion of the ingrediants of same, the neomycin is an antibiotic, as is sulphadiazine, but Kaolin is widely used in drugs that are used to treat various gastrointestinal problems. The smoothening properties of the clay provide relief to irritation in the stomach. It is also known to absorb and kill the bacteria and viruses in the body, so people used to ingest kaolin powder in old days when they suffered from stomach disorders. It also absorbs the excessive contamination in the stomach and that helps in curing diarrhea and other intestinal problems. It is also known to cure abdominal pain.
Kaolin poultice uses include soothing bruises, reduce swelling, absorbing pus and cleaning wounds, etc. So it is used to treat various skin problems and injuries in animals as well.

The vecoxan is to cover for coccidiosis, while the Bimastat will help to kill any bacteria and aid in the repair of the intestine.

Sorry if i portrayed that i was diagnosing a problem, i will refrain from replying to any threads on sick animals, sometimes i get carried away.

Bizzum

LostCovey wrote: »

You're some impressive vet funny man.

Prescribing for an animal you haven't seen is rather naughty. But I suppose you know exactly what you're doing.

What are you treating it for, exactly?

LostCovey

I wouldn't have took this as prescribing, I would have took it as a chap on an internet forum offering his opinion as to what he would do in the situation.

My own vet must be rather naughty too with all the stuff I get off him over the phone.
All I do on here is give my opinion. I'm sure thats what the OP did too.
There is no onus on anyone to heed it.

LostCovey

Bizzum wrote: »

I wouldn't have took this as prescribing, I would have took it as a chap on an internet forum offering his opinion as to what he would do in the situation.

My own vet must be rather naughty too with all the stuff I get off him over the phone.
All I do on here is give my opinion. I'm sure thats what the OP did too.
There is no onus on anyone to heed it.

Bizzum if your vet wants to prescribe stuff over the phone, at least s/he might have some familiarity with your farm, system, history. Still sounds to me like s/he should be doing their job.

Look - I may have been a bit hard on 'funny man', but I really think people treat this forum as a snug in a pub where light hearted chat and suggestions stay between a few regular users. That is not the case. This site has a huge and wide readership.

Many of our consumers believe that Irish farm animals are pickled with drugs, casually obtained, casually used (and 'funny man' inadvertently would have supported that mirage, by suggesting that a mix of things to cover lots of things is a way to proceed when you don't know what's wrong). I have met city people who (truly) believe that antibiotics are added to bulk milk tanks daily and that is why milk has such a long expiry date. Don't be supplying misguided people like that with ammunition, when its clearly not the case.

We all identify with the farmer with a sick animal, we have all been there, but when the person who buys our milk or meat or eggs is casually surfing through boards.ie, I do not want them to think that their food is coming from animals that are treated casually with drugs based on the advice of some fella on a forum (or some fella on the phone either Bizzum, to be honest, even if that fella has a degree. This is someones food we are talking about). Very few farmers in my experience would resort to the internet for advice on how to treat a sick calf, and rightly so.

So if ye think I have been hard on 'funny man', fair enough ye might have a point.

But this sort of thread is not a good idea, and I would urge people to think before offering advice and look at the bigger picture.

LostCovey

keep going

j---- lighten up a bit lost covey,am with you funny on the kaolin

LostCovey

keep going wrote: »

j---- lighten up a bit lost covey,am with you funny on the kaolin

Kaolin is pottery clay. It would stop a train. Cures nothing, but hides the symptoms well.

LC

whelan1

i would also use the bimastat and vecoxan , as we are advising or giving our tuppence worth i would also give a lectade at next feed rather than milk.. hope he improves

Bizzum

LostCovey wrote: »

Bizzum if your vet wants to prescribe stuff over the phone, at least s/he might have some familiarity with your farm, system, history. Still sounds to me like s/he should be doing their job.

Look - I may have been a bit hard on 'funny man', but I really think people treat this forum as a snug in a pub where light hearted chat and suggestions stay between a few regular users. That is not the case. This site has a huge and wide readership.

Many of our consumers believe that Irish farm animals are pickled with drugs, casually obtained, casually used (and 'funny man' inadvertently would have supported that mirage, by suggesting that a mix of things to cover lots of things is a way to proceed when you don't know what's wrong). I have met city people who (truly) believe that antibiotics are added to bulk milk tanks daily and that is why milk has such a long expiry date. Don't be supplying misguided people like that with ammunition, when its clearly not the case.

We all identify with the farmer with a sick animal, we have all been there, but when the person who buys our milk or meat or eggs is casually surfing through boards.ie, I do not want them to think that their food is coming from animals that are treated casually with drugs based on the advice of some fella on a forum (or some fella on the phone either Bizzum, to be honest, even if that fella has a degree. This is someones food we are talking about). Very few farmers in my experience would resort to the internet for advice on how to treat a sick calf, and rightly so.

So if ye think I have been hard on 'funny man', fair enough ye might have a point.

But this sort of thread is not a good idea, and I would urge people to think before offering advice and look at the bigger picture.

LostCovey

I don't really have any issue with much of what you say. However I do not accept that I the majority of people engage in public house talk on this thread.

Good Animal husbandry beholds us all to make diagnosis daily on our stock, and thus we gain experience, from this experience we can share our views, and our opinions.That is NOT to say we should diagnose on a chat forum the ailments of all and sundry. But I do think we can offer opinion. I would think we have lost something if the answer to every thread on an ailing animal was to get the vet out. On some threads that opinion is offered, and rightly so, but on others, I feel the advice of several experienced farmers is worth its weight in gold.

Again, there is merit in many points in your post, but you will find if you check my limited input in this forum,(and others),that I do think before I post.
No one that I know has a monopoly on seeing the bigger picture, it's there for us all!

bbam

Had vet earlier for test and she looked at this calf for me..
For the last few days I'd been giving it natural youghert, a spoon of kaolin powder and a dart of hot water, feeding has improved. Vet was happy that that was correct as she reckons his bowel is just very irritated after the scour.
Got a powder (forget the damn name) to give once a day, again to help balance out the stomach/bowel and she reckoned it should clear up fine, not to worry as long as the calf was feeding.

One thing I found annoying was that when I moved the calf into a pen on its own it refused to feed completely, had to move it back and it started feeding again.

Bizzum

bbam wrote: »

Got a powder (forget the damn name) to give once a day, again to help balance out the stomach

Was it Stimulex ( not to be confused with Stimulux:)) by any chance?

milkprofit

dose of liquid parafin will be some help to clear system
did vet diagnoise proplem
Or is shej ust gessing like the rest of us
we usualy have one or two of these calves every year if you get them to 5 weeks then try no milk
if this does not work try PRAYER:cool:

bbam

Bizzum wrote: »

Was it Stimulex ( not to be confused with Stimulux:)) by any chance?

That was it all right...

bbam

MILK PROFIT wrote: »

dose of liquid parafin will be some help to clear system
did vet diagnoise proplem
Or is shej ust gessing like the rest of us
we usualy have one or two of these calves every year if you get them to 5 weeks then try no milk
if this does not work try PRAYER:cool:

Don't like the idea of paraffin as there was no sign of a blockage, wouldn't think a laxative would be good treatment for a scour unless it was overflow..

By diagnose, do you mean did she do a battery of lab tests, no..
She did however examine him thoroughly, go through history and based on her extensive training and experience give her professional opinion..

Have seen an improvement in the last 36 hours so hopefully this continues..

whelan1

coffee is also good as a pick me up , we mix it with the stimulex

bbam

whelan1 wrote: »

coffee is also good as a pick me up , we mix it with the stimulex

Interesting..
What ratios and in how much water ??

whelan1

we would give a cow a jar of coffee with a satchet of stimulex, a calf would get about a dessert spoon with the stimulex... we get cheap jars of coffee for around a euro in tesco, does the job

Bizzum

whelan1 wrote: »

coffee is also good as a pick me up , we mix it with the stimulex

For you or the calf?

whelan1

Bizzum wrote: »

For you or the calf?

both the first time the vet told me to get coffee i got nescafe for the cow it was mad dear , so now when there are offers in the supermarket i buy a tray of it:)