Redwater - symptoms to look for

if you rub her hard enough and for long enough in the right spot she should pass water.

if she does have it and it isn’t caught soon enough she’ll start to stagger when walking with blood loss and will feel cold to touch. Had to do a blood transfusion with one here years like this ago but she recovered.

is she bought into the farm long?

If it is still early stages she should be running a high temperature. If you stay looking at them for an hour and then start moving them around so she gets nervous, she might pass water then.

Have you considered everything else? Is she milking?

If she’s on your farm nine years you’d think she would have got redwater long before now if she was going to get it but anything is possible i suppose.

Not if they have red water,walking with the loss of blood can bring on a heart attack. If possible, transport back to the farm yard is preferable.

Summer mastitis could be a worry with that cow, some amount of feckin flies about.

Flutter valve??

You wouldn’t think a cow which has been on the same ground all her life would get redwater.

It is a regular occurrence on a bit of land I've been renting. Tried loads of tricks to get rid or prevent it with only partial success. I've used the Bayticol pour on and I'm not convinced it works. I've had them graze the ground right down to the earth -> this worked as long as I always keep grazing it very tight but once a bit of scutch grass is allowed to form it comes back again.

What does work?

• Home bred calves left in the place from birth to at least 6 months and during the active months of the Summer so that they are exposed to the babesiosis from the ticks
• Using Imizol as Prevention this means double dosing at the rate of 2.0 ml/ 100 kg body weight -> expensive and impacts the animal plus you cannot send to the factory for 213 days after (426 days if in organics)

Symptoms

Initially it causes a fever in cattle so different animals can react differently, and the same animal can react differently depending on how far gone. But signs to watch out for is

• Early stages, animal may be acting odd, it may seem like it is being spooked by something in the distance and may be flighty. Mild temperature. Piss may still be clear.
• Medium stage, animal doesn't always stay with the others but sometimes they do, seems off and not inclined to graze. Will have a Temperature and will be passing Tea to Wine color piss. It will also piss often too. You really need to be catching them at this stage and if you do they should be getting Imizol asap as they can go to the next stage in a couple of hours.
• Later stages. animal lying on its own, froth from the mouth, you can hear the heart banging. When you put it up it will only stand for a while but will lay down again. Can be aggressive, shaking the head and staggering. They will not piss often now if at all but they can make a piping hot Shite bloody shite. They are in big trouble at this stage, Imizol on it's own will not cure them as the heart may fail. They will need a blood transfusion to survive, so you'll have the vet out. Have a healthy animal available for him to get blood from and insist that he performs the transfusion. Never-mind any of the Treacle, Sugar and eggs mularky. It's Imizol and Blood transfusion is the only thing that can save the animal.

Unfortunately for me it has been a costly exercise to learn

epsom salts best if not passing dung, doesn't seem to be as many ticks on cattle this year

I have a case of it at the moment, bought in cattle for summer grazing but all injected for it as I has one last year as well but survived and recovered fine. Vet says the younger they get it the better chance they have, had tb test yesterday so he injected him again and he makes up his own "purge" organic powered that he has got 2 doses of. Looks a bit better today and ate a bit of nuts. Fingers crossed

Hard to catch them from the start as the guys say they just look off but by yesterday he was lying on his own. Hope the cow makes it Patsy

Keeping the grass grazed down helps prevent it, but equally young stock need to be exposed to it on rough grazing to acquire immunity.

Watch bought in 10 days in for symptoms, I believe once they are infected and treated, that's it they won't get it again

Years back two of bought in got it, one died the other survived a bold transfusion. The remainder were given a double dose preventative, they weren't in the better of it, sickly looking and set back for a week.

Is land high in P / K more prone to red water

I always heard that.

It’s not a crap land problem, but can be farm / vein specific. The best of land in Meath can have it. I think there is a vaccine

We have land with it, lost a few cows over the years to it as well, have'nt had any cases in a few years now thank god.

I always keep an eye on anything bought in, especially the stock bull, all adult cattle are dosed with bayticol twice a year here whether they were raised on the land as calves or not, the withdrawal period is crazy long.