Abscess in one month old calf

[Southern by choice]

Ok yea I'd appreciate the info. These are my first four calfs. $160 for all four, figured it would be nice to have the calfs and wean them to resale. My one buddy told me to check the rear end, if it's dry feed them,if its wet treat them. Said nothing about lumps lol.at any rate sounds like I need to be on my toes with these four. @Southern by choice I think you've just help me decide to sit this one out and get a pro to handle it. Not so much worried about the lancing part, jist the biosecurity that needs to take place. I do thank the both you very much for all your help and advice. Tomorrow brings a new day and a new farm bill with a call to the vet lol @cjc whenever is fine for the info on the antibiotics, I work till 4. Not sure what time zone lol but can't be too far off yours. oh and by chance is any one calf starter better than the others??

Sadly not all vets take Bio-security seriously and may lance it right where they stand. It will be up to you to put a tarp down if they decide to lance, ask about bio-security and designate an area just in case they lance or it bursts. ALWAYS wear gloves when handling pus or other bodily fluids.

You'd be surprised how many vets have lanced goat abscesses that were CL and once that hits the ground that's it... it's there.
Hopefully this is just a prick from something and not "lumpy-jaw".
Lumpy jaw in other species is easy to treat and keep under control, much harder in cattle.

Hope you let us all know the findings! Wishing for good news!

 

[Mikethepigman]

I don't know what I'd do if some vet shows up and doesn't have any biosecurity plan and screws things up. Is prolly be in jail lol. That's sad though really that we as farmers trust the vet to do it right and one small thing can ruin the whole operation!! I did read about lumpy jaw, no cure from what I've read. Sure glad to have yalls insight!! Thanks again. And definitely will keep updating the news.

 

[cjc]

@Mikethepigman i feed the highest quality grain they have at our local grain mill. It's called calf starter but there are 3 qualities, I feed the highest until 3 months old then I switch them over to the normal cow grain I feed the rest of the herd. By 3 months they are down to one bottle a day and fully eating hay and grain. I feed that one bottle until 4 months old. Now all the calf raisers I know wean at 2 months but I like to give them more time.

Bottle calves are a lot of work but they are lovely! I bought 8 black angus x Holsteins this year. I got a nurse cow as well to offset the cost of the milk.

I also wouldn't worry about lumpy jaw on this calf. It's more than likely an easily treatable abscess from the calf chewing on some straw or hay.

Give your calves access to water, grain and good quality hay at all times. It will get them on it faster. At one week after each bottle when they are head butting you I start shoving grain in their mouths. Keep doing it until they walk away. Just shove it right in!

 

[cjc]

@babsbag they are time consuming for sure. If they get sick they can get really sick really fast. You just have to be diligent with them. I had 3 that got scours this year. I bought them all from the same farm one had it a day after I got it. She was fine when I picked her up and it just goes around. I ended up treating 6 of my bottle calves for scours, just can get expensive. Once you get the hang of it, it gets easier and easier. But they are vulnerable.

But they are wonderful. I wouldn't just get one they get lonely on their own. The reason I started with the bottle calves was one of my beef cows ended up giving me an orphan to raise. He was genuinely lonely! So I got one more, then 6 more because they are addicting! Try and get either a heifer from a dairy or a dairy x beef calf or if possible a beef calf. They will give you the best value at sale time. Also buy when they are under a week old. Sometimes when they are older they are sold bcs they are sick/weak or they were pulled from their dam. It's hard to take a calf off an udder and onto a bottle after the first few days

 

[babsbag]

@cjc I would be raising one for my freezer which is so hard to do with a bottle anything but that is the way it is around here. But I believe in giving them the best life that I can while they are under my care. It would most likely be a jersey bull calf from someone I know that owns a dairy. I know that it will have colostrum and be as healthy as possible. But I am clueless beyond that so if this comes to fruition I will put you and @farmerjan on speed dial.

I have raised bottle fed kittens and goats and the kittens are a full time job. Oh my, are they a lot of work but so worth it....as one, all grown up, is sleeping on the back of my chair right now.

 

[cjc]

@Mikethepigman Hey! The drug was excenel. But if you read up in the posts @farmerjan also mentions the drug naxcel. I am sure both are fine, just use a wide spectrum long lasting antibiotic.

If you are going to pick up some meds if you haven't given these calves a nasal spray for pneumonia pick up some of that. I make sure all my calves, bottle fed or not get that young. It needs to be boostered so make sure you get enough.

 

[farmerjan]

Excenel is the best overall drug of choice for something like the abcess. And it has the shortest withdrawal time so that many also use it so that if they have to treat an animal that they have the option of selling it without having to keep it for a month or more. Also, there are many that don't even need lancing, I rarely lance them. If they burst on their own then I clean them and make sure they don't seal up so they heal from the inside out. But they sometimes come up on calves that are on the cow too and it is usually a thorn or something that gets imbedded. Maybe I sound too casual, but it isn't something that you just get overly excited about when you've seen them over the years. I don't think that your vet was being too casual @cjc, just something that they see. And although I can understand the concern about lumpjaw, it is very rare at least in this area. Have seen only a couple of cases in over 40 years. No I am not a vet, although I took vet tech so that I would be able to better deal with my own issues.
I think that there might be more of an issue with CL in goats, than with cattle having an occasional lump/abcess . It is not that uncommon in calves.
There is also the immunity factor, and that animals build up immunity to things through some exposure and through vaccination. This could just as easily go down in a week or two and you will never notice the difference.
I would put him on a preventative antibiotic like excenel, or even of over the counter pennicillin, for a couple of days and see what happens.
The big thing is - ALWAYS - watch the appetite and make sure they aren't scouring. If they do, yes they can get very sick very fast because they will dehydrate. Electrolytes are then the first line of defense. We have actually put them on an IV to get them rehydrated in the past. But as long as this calf is eating and acting fine, I wouldn't go to electrolytes yet because you are then changing the composition of his stomach. That changes the bacteria which can cause some other gastric problems. And don't take away his hay, just try to make sure there aren't alot of prickery things in it. That is why I always suggest something like 2nd or 3rd cutting orchard grass as a starter hay for calves as it is fine and "bladey" and easy for them to eat and digest.
Also, you can use hydrogen peroxide to clean it out with. That is a great inexpensive, all purpose, anti-everything, to use. The o2 means that it will kill everything as nothing can survive in a super oxygenated environment. At a dilution of about 1 to 10 it is often used now by dairyman to clean and prep udders for their cows in the milking barn. Kills the bacteria and they have lower overall somatic cell counts too.

 

[farmerjan]

I also am adamantly against any vaccinations that are modified live. I use only killed virus vaccinations. One of my quirks. I feel that if a virus can mutate...even though the modified live are supposed to be safe, what's to say they can't mutate???? Not supposed to.....but I don't trust it. Give me the killed virus and do a second booster shot. A very close vet friend and I absolutely DISAGREE on this subject; he is very good at most things so we don't discuss this.

 

[Green Acres Farm]

Also, there are many that don't even need lancing, I rarely lance them. If they burst on their own then I clean them and make sure they don't seal up so they heal from the inside out.

But what if the abcess is from some bacteria that will stay in the soil pretty much forever?

 

[Southern by choice]

That is an issue @Green Acres Farm any animal with an abscess should be quarantined until either it is lanced and cultured or bursts.

It may not contain Actinomyces bovis which is responsible for lumpy jaw but there are many other bacteria that are also very bad and highly contagious. Trueperella Pyogenes is another bad one... causing mastitis, abortion, pneumonia... and a whole host of other issues.