Urgent help + advice needed

[Fairlight]

Hi everyone,
I am wondering if anyone can give me some urgent advice. My DH who normally knows what to do with the steers in currently posted with the army in Afghanistan.

I am dying here! I have four 15 month old steers. And I have Four big problems...

1. 1 had just disappeared. We have looked everywhere and it is just ....gone. WIll have to ring the council to see if anyone has called them about it coming into their places.

2. My Freisan steer is sick. He is lethargic and very quite. Normally he is a feisty fellow. I was moving all the cattle back into the small padock next to our house to give grain and drench and I noticed he has basically raw skin patches on his inner back hind legs on both sides. I am about to go out and gentleput some antiseptic cream on him but I honestly do not know what this is or what caused it.

I am nervous that the paddock I moved them into might have had a grass or weed that might have affected him.

3. The other steer has a few small patches of raw skin like the freisan above.

4. They are just so skinny. i have been moving them around as we are in winter here and haven't been getting much rain so the feed was low. I moved them into the front paddock as there was more feed there but I am about to go out and pick up feed for them as there isn't much inthe way in the house paddock.....

I was planning on selling them shortly because we are getting posted out of here at the end of the year but honestly they look severely neglected even though they are regualrly drenched and feed....

Feeling a bit deparate without DH to help me. If anyone has any advice I would surely appreciate you very much...

Many thanks

Fairlight

 

[Fairlight]

Sorry,
just an update. Cows still not found but I have this sick feeling inside that he might be dead... Which would break my heart because he is my favourite, his name is Sir Loin!

We finally moved the other three into the house yard paddock and it took about 2 hours to move them 400m. They are all very lethargic and weak.

Went and bought 3 bales of barley hay and grain and molassas and started with the barley hay and they were not interested at all.

I am just wondering ( and no one can help me with this, I am just thinking out loud as I have no one to bounce this off here) that the owner of the property might have left poison out?? We are renting a home on 40ac which he allows us to use small parts of that to run our 4 steers on and rotate them. Anyway a visitor left the gate open on the driveway end of last week and they got into the front paddock which a majority is scrub. He is always spraying for weeds etc... I didn't think much of it to be honest with you all because (a) they are overseas for 4 weeks atm and his cows were in there about 2 months ago. There was quite a bit of feed in there as it had been left alone and I thought well having them in there wouldn't be too much of a problem and I brought them up into the closer paddock yesterday. Now when I bring them up to the house paddock they are a mess.

Or I wonder if they have contracted barbers Pole.... a worm that is common in these parts. The drench covers it so hopefully this will either take care of it or it isn't the problem.....

any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Getting a vet out isn't a possibility atm. Too far away.

Fairlight

 

[aggieterpkatie]

I'm not sure how we can diagnose something like this on the internet. I really think you *need* to find a way to get a vet out. Or risk losing them all. How skinny are they? That could be why they're so lethargic.

 

[Fairlight]

A friend came out and he thinks that the sicker cow has a paralysis tick. Poor thing and the others he has seen so many times in this area..... the local dairy farmers get rid of the calves so quickly and often they are not even aloud to have the colostrum. We bought them ( we were very green) as little babies and hand raised them on calf formula etc with lots of love and care. We initially lost one and then a month later another one. We did have access to a vet $400 house visit later told us it had the sickness it died from because it was deprived of the colostrum. The others all failed to thrive despite the calf formula and good hay etc.... My friend recons they are like so so many other little bulls/steers in the district that folk buy at the sale yards for pets or whatever..

Went out tonight and they were chewing their cud and walking around a bit so I am feeling hopeful. They are so tame, excessively so because we hand raised them and they lived basically in our back yard. Our kids dressed them up and praciced lassooing them... they were good with that....ignored the kids completely! So they are very dear to us and it is very hard to see them in such a bad way.

 

[Fairlight]

Steers all dead. Died of paralysis tick.

Just wanted to thank this forum, for all your help in the past. I have posted a few times before and I appreciated our answers. I know it is hard answering questions sight unseen, but I do appreciate it.

Thank you for this forum

Fairlight

 

[ksalvagno]

sorry you lost all your steers.

 

[glenolam]

I'm really sorry you lost them all - especially since you had to deal with it when your husband was away.

We just got a Jersey bull calf that I named Sir Loin and he's also my favorite so your story got to me...

Good luck in the future and keep us posted if you ever get any more calves!