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Calves randomly dying

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Farmer Ted Hess

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Florida
Several months ago I bought 10 calves. As it stands now I have 1 1/2 left. I say that because one is actively dying as I type this message. I have no clue what could be causing this. They were sick when I bought them and the vet gave me the strongest antibiotic possible. At the time only one had died. After being seemingly health 1 will randomly die here or there. They are move back and forth between two pastures of approximately 5 acres each. They have been wormed, vaccinated, and given antibiotics as needed. They are fed twice a day, they are able to roam and eat grass, and they are given hay as well. They have more than adequate supplies of clean fresh water.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions as to what may be causing this? An how to prevent it? As of now, 90% of my investment is dead. And if the past is any indicator of the future, the last one standing isn't far from dead. I'm very frustrated at this point and any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
need more info , How big are they ? what kind of cattle ? what are the symtoms ? any old cars or junk iron in the pasture ? Lead from car batteries or old lead based paint can kill cattle pretty well .
 
Well I didn't know they were sick per se. They were a little thin but looked good otherwise. No autopsy done. The last I saw the one that was dying started to turn around. Got him some IV fluids and he was up and moving. I'll see how he's doing when I go home today. What is the avg cost of an autopsy for a calf?
 
Are they scouring at all? Are they bloating? They have to have some
kind of symptoms. Breathing hard? How is their appetite? If they've had
a lot of antibiotics they need some probiotic to get the good bacteria
back in their gut, but I don't think that would cause them to die quickly.

There is also fast-acting pneumonia.

I'd get one autopsied. Here I think it
costs about $100, but not certain. It would be different in different areas,
I would think.
 
Persistently Infected BVD? :shock:

Did they come from the same home?

Were there mother's vaccinated?

Are they "drug addicts"? By that I mean will they live as long as you keep pumping the drugs in?

Any swollen joints? Blisters in the mouth, or between the toes? Scours?

All warning signs. You can send in a chunk of an ear for a test to see if that's the problem. If it comes back as BVD PI, then there's really nothing that can be done about it. Except never ever buy cattle from that source again. If the cows aren't vaccinated, and are exposed while bred, the unborn calves are pretty much doomed. Their immune systems never will function properly.
 
They all came from the same place. Idk if the moms were vaccinated or not. No scours. No swollen joints. Didn't check their mouths or toes yet. They get probiotics. They have been coughing tho. They lay in tall wet grass to sleep so maybe pneumonia. I'll see about getting the next one that dies autopsied. I won't be buying cows from him anymore. They were only .10/lb cheaper than the other ones I was going to buy. They just seemed a little thinner but the other ones were probably much healthier. Now I'm out over $2500 trying to get out of paying property taxes. Lesson learned. Thanks for the help gentleman.....and the 16 candles fan
 
The majority of them I believe were dairy. Not sure how soon they were taken from their mother. This will sound stupid but do they have to be black and white spotted to be dairy? Not all of them were. Some were plain colored. If it is brv or persistent bvd, and the antibiotics only work temporarily, is there anything I can do to save them or are they doomed?
 
If they didn't receive enough colostrum right after birth, that's not good, but
I wouldn't think every one of them would die from that. There are sure people that know more about dairy calves than I do. Ours were just out of our milk cows.
And no, dairy calves don't have to be black and white. If bred to a black bull, they could be almost all black. However, I'd be surprised if a real dairy
would do that, as the crossbred heifers wouldn't be worth as much as a purebred Holstein.

Why don't you call the guy you got them from and try
and find out a little history? How old are these calves? Do you have
one or two still alive? What did the vet say? Did you buy them through
the sale ring or privately?
 
Two are still alive. I'll try to get some info from the guy I got them from. They're about 5 months old now. The vet didn't really tell me anything. Just said they're sick and give them x amount of this antibiotic, then charged me. I actually still have two, somehow. The one that was actively dying is now up eating and walking around like normal. All I did was give him some Gatorade from a bottle and some penicillin. And oddly enough, now he seems fine.
 
When I was in S.W. Florida there were alot of dairy bull calves for sale, half were black hided. Most never did well and
ALOT of them never seen six months of age.

Additionally, many of the lots folks were raising bottle fed calves and goats on (primarily for tax exemtion reasons) were infested with noxious weeds, some of which are poisionous. Lantana is a main culprit.

As mentioned above, buried junk, primarily car batteries will poision the ground and water, as will coolant.

From what I understand from freinds, that part of Florida has also been subject to alot of rain for the past month, doesn't help sick calves when they're soggy and standing in a couple of inches of water.

One thing you can try next time if you are going to purchase dairy calves or put together stockers is to purchase medicated feed. There is a mill near Okachobee that will custom mix your feed. Any decent feed supply in ag towns should be able to help you.

Also, getting a vaccination protocal from your vet is a good move.

BTW, you're not the first to kill some cattle, sometimes the learning curve sucks, sometimes cattle just try to find new ways to kill themselves ;)

bart. †
 
It sounds like you've hit the nail right on the head. There are tons of these dairy calves for sale. The field seems to be mostly good and I don't think it's contaminated with junk but poisonous weeds are probably everywhere. I'm gonna check into the medicated feed. Next time I get some calves I'll pay the extra .10/lb for them. Maybe see if there's something I can do to clean up these fields just to be sure there is no poisonous weeds growing out of control. Is feeding them twice a day, plus hay and grass a good diet or am I leaving something out? Thanks for all your help
 
I wouldn't touch them unless they'd had some colostrum at birth. That's where their immunity comes from, and if they miss it, they have problems all along. And if their mothers weren't ever vaccinated, the colostrum is less than adequate too. BVD is an immune suppressing disease and the result is the same with it as with a lack of colostrum.

And yes, they can all die. Way back when, about 25 years ago, Hubby and a friend of his saw some extremely cheap Holstein calves at a sale. I think they were something like five dollars apiece. They weren't even worth that. They bought a half dozen each. Between them they had 100% death loss within two weeks. :shock:

Last time a sale barn Holstein ever set foot on our place.
 
Need a lot more information than has been provided for anyone to come up with a reasonable guess....

At the moment, I'm reading that you purchased 10 black and white and solid colored (red? black? purple?) calves, possibly dairy calves, all steers, several months ago (were they weaned at that point or did you bottle feed them?) and they are about 5 months of age now. You have lost 8 of them over the past couple months. They are on 5 acres pasture and get fed twice a day (with what, grain? how much?). Calves have been wormed (with what?) and vaccinated (with what?) and "given antibiotics as needed" (have they previously been sick? what were the signs and what were they treated with?).

Signs of illness include coughing. What else?

One calf who was sick seems to be recovering following treatment with IV fluids and penicillin. The other calf has not shown signs of illness. What had you treated the calves that died with?
 

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