Milk fever

[nz dexter]

I have an old girl who is going to calve in the next few weeks. Last time she went down with milk fever and we got her right with an IV dose of whatever it was.

This time I have some More-mag to give her via a syringe in her mouth 50mls repeated every 2 weeks as a preventative.

Now my real question is local dairy farmers dust their paddocks daily with magnesium powder prior to calving. Wouldn't it be easier to dose the cows once every 2 weeks and know they are actually getting a good dose? For me it is easier to dose her and know she is getting it as we are not feeding the dexters any suppliments as they are in excellent conditions as previously I put the powder on silage but they tended to shake it off before eating.

This is her last calf as she is old and has arthritis.

[Saffy]

Dear NZ Dexter

If your cow is prone to Milk Fever - calcium deficiency it would be a good idea to keep some calcium boroglucinate on hand for when she calves, which needs to go under the skin when required.

It is different to Grass Staggers the term sometimes used for magnesium deficiency.

Not sure I have spelt everything correctly!

Hopefully this will be explained in more detail and more clearly by someone else.

Stephanie

[Duncan MacIntyre]

I think you should get local veterinary advice, since only locals will know what the conditions are. As Stephanie correctly says, milk fever is due to low calcium levels in the blood, and generally Calcium Borogluconate by intravenous or subcutaneous injection is used to treat it. Here in the west of Scotland we sometimes see the situation complicated by low magnesium levels in the background, and I often use a bottle which contains some magnesium in addition to the calcium. I have known situations where low pasture magnesium levels were precipitating milk fever in even young cows, but this is unusual. Although one would imagine oral supplimentation would be good if there is a deficiency, this is not always the case as it can encourage overdependance on daily oral intake, and it is often the case that a cow eats substantially less for a day or two around calving, so the blood levels can drop. It is more usual to encourage some use of the huge bone reserves of calcium by having dry cows on a relatively low calcium diet. The withdrawal of calcium from bone becomes more difficult as the cow gets older and bone becomes more solid with less bone well supplied with blood vessels - that is why older cows are more likely to go down with it. Your local dairy farmers are probably operating a completely different managment system to both yourself with Dexters and to our dairy farmers in UK.

Duncan

[nz dexter]

Thanks for the great replies.

I did get the suppliment from the local vet, but at the time didn't think to ask why dairy farmers dusted their pasture with it instead. Hubby thinks that the powder is probably cheaper hence why they do it that way.

We have some IV calcium on hand if needed.