Lumps on neck

[bjreroberts]

My cow periodically gets dozens of small lumps around her neck. They are only really noticeable close up or when you give her a rub. They do not cause her any irritation and none of the other 5 Desters with her have the same.

Up to now I have put this down to her been greedy and especially partial to eating the hedgerow rather than grass. As soon as I let them into a new part of the field the other go for the grass but she will go straight for the hedgerow and stick her head through hawthorn and brambles to get to whatever she can.

I am reasonably sure it is pricks from the thorns causing this, but is there anything else that might be could cause this that I should look out for?

[carole]

Could it be a reaction to insect bites? A few of ours get these lumps and our one and only red gets quite a few in comparison to the rest of the gang , I read somewhere that dexters were less susceptible to bt due to skin colour (presumably as long as they are black!

[bjreroberts]

I suppose it could be that she just reacts to bites unlike the others, but they have all had pour on at the same time and she is the only one affected.

She was bulling last week, can that make them more prone to insect bites than normal?

[domsmith]

we had a heifer this spring with warts around the neck, they looked terrible. little individual warts and some great clusters of them.

i did the usual farmer thing of leaving thrm for a week and they didnt get worse so i used a bit of spot on to keep the flies off and 4 or 5 weeks later they were all gone.

i believe they are viral. i noticed the other day a large ho;stein bullock had some just visible in the white hair, not as bad and more like lumps, they again have started to disapear.
my neighbour had a heifer with some this spring also, and the vet removed them for him.

dom