Help for foot rot?

[Border rancher]

Thank you for the suggestions everyone!
We have been waiting to see what the last antibiotics, the Propen LA and the sulpha boluses would do and the cow is better. The hind hoof wasn't cracking above the toe like the front was. The hind is much better and the leakage from the front foot has almost stopped. I don't know if the drugs, all or any of them, caused the improvement. Should I re-dose with any of them or hope the hoof rot has run it's course and will get better now?

 

[DOC HARRIS]

WELL, #1~are you sure it is hoof rot?

Did you take her temperature?
Was the foot (feet) swollen at the coronary band?
Did it, does it stink real bad?

You may not be dealing with hoofrot; you may be dealing with a bad-footed cow. Is there cracks in her toes?

We had a customer call us last winter that was "getting a lot of hoof rot." So we checked it out. Every cow had cracks in their feet. We took temperatures; no temperature on any cow.

What had happened was, the rancher was feeding cake in big pastures. We had a severe cold spell. The cattle were travelling quite a ways to water and quite a ways to the cake on badly frozen ground. That set up the scenerio for sore-footed cows to show up. And the ones that showed up all had long toes or cracks in their toes.

What I found interesting was that this rancher had called two or three vets and they all said to treat with LA-200 and sulfa boluses. The ones they treated did not get better. Not one vet went out to look at what was going on. But they sure took his money for the medication.

And we wonder why we have a problem with antibiotics in this country?

Faster Horses - you are SO correct regarding antibiotics and almost all "super-everything" drugs - animals AND humans. I am not opposed to the terrific pharmaceutical discoveries which have been forth-coming lately, - HOWEVER - There is a time and a way to use them correctly and not to over-utilize anything which will create side-effects, or be ineffective! Most veterinarians, if they are sincerely interested in their patients will do the best that they can for them, and not doing an examination after a suggestion does not work - - - - well......

 

[TLC Farms]

The best thing that we have found to treat footrot with is Nuflor. Usually we see results by the next day.

 

[DOC HARRIS]

We have a young cow (feeding a big calf) that has foot rot in one back and one front foot. We gave her a large dose of oxy tet to start with, with no improvement. A couple weeks later we gave her a large dose of LA penicillin and 8 large sulfa pills. Still not much difference. I guess the next step must be the foot soaks with the formalin or copper sulphate solution, but that is a lot of work as I know from past experience. Does anyone know of anything else that might help?

Check new post "New thought~Let's get some input on this" as of Sunday 7-31.