health
digital ones widen out and you won’t lose them in the cow’s rectum,” says Clark. “Taking temperature is easy and can tell you a great deal. Body temperature for cattle should be between 38 and 39.5 C. If a young calf is cold, with subnormal temperature, that’s life threatening. If the temperature is above 39.5 C it’s running a fever. The most common reason for fever is infection. It could be viral or bacterial, but if the calf is running a fever, treating with antibiotics is a good idea. If the calf does not have a fever, there is a question whether antibiotics will help. So the first step is to take that calf’s temperature,” he says. If you call your veterinarian for advice, report the animal’s temperature. “This gives the veterinarian a lot of information. When we know the temperature along with your description of symptoms, this helps us narrow it down,” says Clark. “With young calves that aren’t doing right, check the navel. This is a common site of infection. Learn to tell the difference between a navel infection and a hernia. When you squeeze them, hernias generally disappear; the protrusion moves up into the belly. It’s normally soft, rather than hard and hot. The amount of skin at the navel is variable with the breed. What you are interested in, rather than how large the area, is the stalk that you can feel under the skin. It should be thinner than your pinkie finger, and should not be hot or painful. If it’s thick, hot, or painful when pressed, or has a discharge from, it’s probably infected,” he says. “If it’s a small hernia, the only thing in it is a bit of fatty tissue (omentum). If it’s a large opening, a loop of intestine may come through and become twisted — and that’s life threatening.” A large hernia needs surgical repair. Pneumonia in calves occurs most often in winter/spring rather than summer. “If the calf is sick in summer it’s usually something else. The thing about pneumonia is that it always gives the calf a fever,” he explains. A thermometer will be a big help. Scours in calves is caused by multiple things, so knowing the age of the calf and the management can help a veterinarian determine the most likely cause. “If the calf is more than three weeks old, you may be dealing with coccidiosis, whereas under three weeks it is more likely caused by a virus or bacteria. The thing to realize about scours in young calves is that it’s not the scours that kills them. It’s the dehydration. When you look at a calf that’s got scours, it doesn’t matter how shitty its tail is, or what
the scours looks like. What we need to check for is dehydration,” says Clark. “Look at the eyes. When a calf suffers from dehydration it looks like the eye sinks back into the socket. If there is a gap between the eyelid and the eye (a sunken appearance), that’s a bad sign. The second way you can check is take a pinch of skin on the side of the neck, and let it go. It should spring back into place instantly. If it takes a few seconds to spring back, you are dealing with dehydration,” he explains. “Those calves need fluid/electrolytes, given by stomach tube; don’t try to feed the calf a bottle. That would take you an hour and you’ll end up wearing most of it because the calf won’t want to suck it — and you’ll complain about the effort and never do it again. With a stomach tube you can give a calf two litres of electrolytes in less than a minute. If something is easy, you’ll do it again,” says Clark. “Another thing I tell people regarding field diagnosis, if they wonder when to stop treating a calf — it’s when you can no longer catch him. If you can’t catch him, don’t treat him. If he’s easy to catch, he needs treatment. I also recommend talking to a
veterinarian if you have repeated episodes of the same problem,” he says. “When you ask your vet for advice, describe what you are seeing. Don’t say, ‘I’ve got calves with pneumonia.’ Tell the vet that you have calves that are depressed and not sucking, and are doing this, this and this (and what the temperature is). Work with your veterinarian to get the diagnosis. If you say your cow has foot rot, this is a diagnosis rather than a description of the lameness, and won’t enable your vet to help figure it out,” he says. “We want producers to recognize the value of a diagnosis, and get involved in helping their veterinarian make the diagnosis.” The producer and the veterinarian can work together as a team. Producers need to describe, to their best ability, what they are seeing, so the veterinarian can have good clues to work toward the proper diagnosis. “A phrase one of my colleagues used a lot regarding diagnosis: more mistakes are made from not looking, than not knowing. You make more mistakes if you don’t look close enough at what the animal is actually doing or how it appears. The clues are often there, if you look for them,” says Clark. c
“When my pen riders pull cattle, I want them to have a fast acting treatment that’s cost-effective.”
It just makes sense to treat cattle for BRD with the new generation macrolide, that is fast acting,1 long lasting2 and has a price that won’t break the bank. (And it’s plastic, so you won’t break the bottle either.) ®
Treat them with ZACTRAN .
Ask your veterinarian why ZACTRAN is ideal for cattle in your feedlot.
1. Giguère S, Huang R, Malinski TJ, Dorr PM, Tessman RK & Somerville BA. Disposition of gamithromycin in plasma, pulmonary epithelial lining fluid, bronchoalveolar cells, and lung tissue in cattle. Am. J. Vet. Res. 72(3): 326-330 (2011). 2. Based on label claims. ZACTRAN ® is a registered trademark of Merial Limited. © 2014 Merial Canada Inc. All rights reserved. ZACT-13-7558-JAD-E
www.canadiancattlemen.ca
C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4
dossier : BOV-14106
client : Merial
date/modif. rédaction
relecture
D.A.
17
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