Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 1:52 pm
Dear all
I am new on here and have had Dexters since March.
I have 20 years experience of livestock and keep sheep and pigs too I have also raised calves and been involved with milking cows.
However I have had 2 of my 6 cows die in the past 4 weeks and need some help as both us and vet are at wits end!
First up was a 12 year old cow 3 months in calf who one day didn't appear for her handful of nuts, she was found standing alone nearby and was on first examination constipated and the rumen etc had stopped. Vet was called and could find nothing wrong except for this and advised vetrumex and castor oil as a drench and plenty of water to drink (they have a stream in the field so water not a problem) plus gave painkillers and vitamins as a boost. Well first drench at 11am ok, went back at 3pm to repeat when she drank some water, appeared a little brighter and we repeated the drench. Within the hour she had gone down and died.
We had a post mortem as the vet suspected a wire but nothing was found and it was put down to one of those things.
However imagine my horror when 3 weeks later I found 3 year old cow 4 weeks off calving a little slow to come for her food! She was eating and drinking but not with her usual gusto. Vet was called and went over her with a fine tooth combe but found everything normal except for a slight rattle in her throat which he said sounded like a sore throat. He gave antibiotic as a precaution and some anti inflamamatories. we penned her up and 24 hours later she was looking brighter was eating and drinking well and licking the other cows faces. Phew we thought. I phoned the vet and he reccommended letting her out to graze with the others. So back I went 3 hours from seeing her before and she was gone! Hurdles( tall sheep hurdles that we use for the gate of our catching pen) were open and she was nowhere to be seen. I explored the fields and there she was stone cold dead on the bank of the stream.
Now I have moved the others to another field nearby, just incase. I will add there is no ragwort, water dropwort or any thing else of that sort in the fields . Where they grazed was 14 acres of woodland pasture, scrub and grassland that had not had any stock for over 4 years naturally watered and very sheltered. We wormed them in July with Dectomax and use Spot on as there are a lot of ticks. We feed a few handfuls of nuts and a bit of hay so they come to us ( you need to do this when they are in such a big area!) and the nuts are low protein grneral stock nuts and the hay is our own.
Having surfed the net I think it could possibly be fluke and the others have been treated with fluke and worm drench.
Can any body shed any light on this? Even our local cattle keeping friends are mystified but when you lose 2 out of 6 cows and they are the best 2 you begin to doubt your stock keeping skills ( Our animals rarely if ever are ill as we pride ourselves on good stock management)
Val
I am new on here and have had Dexters since March.
I have 20 years experience of livestock and keep sheep and pigs too I have also raised calves and been involved with milking cows.
However I have had 2 of my 6 cows die in the past 4 weeks and need some help as both us and vet are at wits end!
First up was a 12 year old cow 3 months in calf who one day didn't appear for her handful of nuts, she was found standing alone nearby and was on first examination constipated and the rumen etc had stopped. Vet was called and could find nothing wrong except for this and advised vetrumex and castor oil as a drench and plenty of water to drink (they have a stream in the field so water not a problem) plus gave painkillers and vitamins as a boost. Well first drench at 11am ok, went back at 3pm to repeat when she drank some water, appeared a little brighter and we repeated the drench. Within the hour she had gone down and died.
We had a post mortem as the vet suspected a wire but nothing was found and it was put down to one of those things.
However imagine my horror when 3 weeks later I found 3 year old cow 4 weeks off calving a little slow to come for her food! She was eating and drinking but not with her usual gusto. Vet was called and went over her with a fine tooth combe but found everything normal except for a slight rattle in her throat which he said sounded like a sore throat. He gave antibiotic as a precaution and some anti inflamamatories. we penned her up and 24 hours later she was looking brighter was eating and drinking well and licking the other cows faces. Phew we thought. I phoned the vet and he reccommended letting her out to graze with the others. So back I went 3 hours from seeing her before and she was gone! Hurdles( tall sheep hurdles that we use for the gate of our catching pen) were open and she was nowhere to be seen. I explored the fields and there she was stone cold dead on the bank of the stream.
Now I have moved the others to another field nearby, just incase. I will add there is no ragwort, water dropwort or any thing else of that sort in the fields . Where they grazed was 14 acres of woodland pasture, scrub and grassland that had not had any stock for over 4 years naturally watered and very sheltered. We wormed them in July with Dectomax and use Spot on as there are a lot of ticks. We feed a few handfuls of nuts and a bit of hay so they come to us ( you need to do this when they are in such a big area!) and the nuts are low protein grneral stock nuts and the hay is our own.
Having surfed the net I think it could possibly be fluke and the others have been treated with fluke and worm drench.
Can any body shed any light on this? Even our local cattle keeping friends are mystified but when you lose 2 out of 6 cows and they are the best 2 you begin to doubt your stock keeping skills ( Our animals rarely if ever are ill as we pride ourselves on good stock management)
Val
