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Stinky calf

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RoperAB

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Moved cows this weekend. Tonight just before dark,noticed one calf that wasnt really close to any cows. Anyway it didnt come with the last group of cows that I moved. Went back to it just barely before dark and noticed right away how bad it stunk. Its tail was gone. I dont think it froze off because it hasnt been cold enough and she still had her ears. This calf is only a few days old. WOW did it ever stink! When I got home I had to wash with hand cleaner, then dish soap, then regular soap to get the rotton stink off. It wasnt a manure smell either. It was a rotton smell.
Didnt have enough light to look it over good but it looked like coyottes chewed the tail off.
Took it to an abondoned homstead and shut it in oneof the building for the night because the cows are all now shut out of that pasture where the calf was. The owner can try to match it up tommorow with the mother.
Question? What could make that calf stink so bad? It smelt like a rotton corpes. Must be the flesh where the tail was ? But that whole calf stunk from several yards away. If you even touched that calf by the ear you would then have that rotton stink on you! No wonder its mother left her.
 
Red Robin said:
Septic?
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My cow doctoring is limited to pulling calves, getting them to suck, tubeing, penicillion, or shooting them.
Please broaden my knowledge. What is septic?
 
Infection..Eventually blood poisoning.....If it smells like rotting flesh than the flesh is probably rotting from a bacterial infection... If it was summer one could argue fly strike but nope.... A good wound that didin't stay clean can leed to this.
 
Bad infection from something. Banded a group of calves. Week later had a bad rotten flesh smell. Nieghbor said he would help me put it into the chute. Band was somehow too low and it was swollen up so I cut it and washed it with peroxide. Nieghbor said he never smelled nothing that bad and he was a lifetime cattleman.
 
Sorry to barge right on in being new an all... but not much time to get on this thing.

Sounds like the rotting flesh which will smell god awful! If the tail is gone the bacteria (rot) will continue on up the spinal area etc. effecting the nerves and as well the blood stream etc. ends up being comprimised.

Not many will put a lot of medical treatment into a new calf but some will and there are products out there that will work. The rotten smell takes a lot to get out as it almost seems like it has an oil base to it. We had a horse with a nasty bite wound on the wither...the infection went down inside towards the shoulder. Nobody noticed it due to the mane covering and when it was holy crap it was rotten! We fixed it up, took time but she's as good as new.

Bob
 
I'd think you could clean up the area (tail) and give it a shot of LA 200 or some other long lasting antibiotic and it might be ok.

We had that lil heifer calf that got chewed up by dogs last summer, and had maggots in her.....we gave her a shot of LA 200 twice..and she cleared up and healed fine..and yes...it had a nasty nasty rotten smell.
 
Since the calf is a few days old I would look for a navel infection. I had one about 10 years ago that the smell was the first indication of a problem. Of course by that time it was to late. The calf was hard to catch until hours before the end.

As far as the tail being chewed off, I have caught foxes in the corral chewing the tails off newborn calves. The coyotes go for the livers first and then the rest of the animal and seldom leave them living.
 
kolanuraven said:
Scours? Nothing stinks as bad a that!!!
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Its not scours and this stinks worse. From what they are saying im sure its septic.

So can people catch this?Horses?????
Yuck :lol: I think I will go jump in the shower again :lol:
Thanks
 
S CO rancher said:
Since the calf is a few days old I would look for a navel infection. I had one about 10 years ago that the smell was the first indication of a problem. Of course by that time it was to late. The calf was hard to catch until hours before the end.

As far as the tail being chewed off, I have caught foxes in the corral chewing the tails off newborn calves. The coyotes go for the livers first and then the rest of the animal and seldom leave them living.
Click to expand...

There are to many coyottes up here for a fox to survive. Im just guessing about the tail being chewed off. Maybe its the septic thing that took the tail? The tail is completely gone right to her rump.
 
We've had babies loose their tails cause Momma Cow or Aunt Bovina have stepped on it and when the baby jumped up it jerked it clean off!!!
 
If you rubbed an open wound on it than yeah, you can have the lovely infection too if you never cleaned it off... Skin is pretty good at keeping infections like that away..
 
You can get infections like these if you let the infection sit on your skin or it gets into areas that are scratched or rubbed. Same with other animals.

Blast that calf with some antibiotics and flush any areas that appear to be infected with antiseptic spray.

Pen it with the mother and make her nurse.

Then throw away your gloves. I will spend what I think the calf is worth at the time to save it.
 
If it was warmer, I'd say maybe screw worms.......dang, but those nasties stink! You can smell 'em a mile away.......ok, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but you don't have to be very close to smell 'em.

Check both navel and tail area for infection, then start putting the anti-biotics on and in that calf....put her in a warm place, if you can. Where there's infection, there's fever.

A good thing we've found is an oinment that draws the infection out. Can't think what it's called, but it comes in a white jar with black writing, and the ointment itself is black and smells dreadful, but it works. We even use it on ourselves if the need arises. Just a good dab of ointment, then cover with a guaze pad, and wrap with a self-stick wrap (like vet-wrap bandage)......change a couple of times a day.

Good luck!
 
I dont think we have scew worms up here.
Anyway I told the owner what you all said about septic and treating it<thanks>. He said <owner>he knew all about septic and wasnt going to waste any money treating it :roll:
Anyway its in a coral with its mother. I will let you know when it dies or if it somehow lives.
If it was my calf I would have treated it like you all said but anyway im just a peasant.
 
That's too bad, Roper. Guess that <owner> must have more dollars than sense.......we, too, have run into bosses like that. and then there's the bosses that go completely the other direction, and will go all out and buy every known drug and have you work on them endlessly, and they still die......

Guess your boss is just saving you the aggrivation and heartache that come with trying your best to save one and it die anyway.

Hope the calf gets better anyway.

(Oh, and we've pretty well eradicated screw worms down here, too. Last confirmed case I saw of them was back in 75 or 76. My Soxin mare ran into a barbedwire fence, and put a fair slit across her chest. While we were at State 4-H Conference, she got screw worms. Dad took a sample and sent it off to the USDA, it came back positive, but by then, we'd gotten rid of them and she was almost completely healed up. They are nasty buggers, though.)
 
Roper now you know what wolf attacked cattle smell like. The ones that they chew up and leave are walking deads, and you can smell them from quite a distance. There is no smell quite like decaying flesh. I would suspect predators of doing the damage, and infection will finish the job.
 

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