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Post by lakeportfarms on Jul 28, 2013 17:23:06 GMT -5
This is the guy we picked to replace old Mike, when he's no longer living a good life. LPFM Dylan is probably about 30" or so now, and the bull calf behind him is a bit under a year old. He's A2/A2, Dun carries red, chondro pos and PHA neg. He's got a perfect temperament for us, he's friendly but not overly so, and very respectful of us. This is the little bull we almost lost to white muscle disease when he was a couple of months old. Sheril spent several days with him and his mom in a small stall, covering him with a down jacket and heating rice filled bags in the microwave and then laying them on him to bring up his temperature. It was just above 0 degrees Farenheit as our high temperatures most of that time, and his temperature dipped as low as 97 before we began to bring it up. We're happy to see him turn out so well after all that!  |
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Post by ssrdex on Jul 30, 2013 16:09:40 GMT -5
That's a great pic of him Hans, really handsome bull. Best of luck with him!
Joel
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dexterlady
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Wife, mother of two daughters and five grand children
Posts: 647
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Post by dexterlady on Jul 30, 2013 20:20:39 GMT -5
Hans, May I ask, what did you do for this bull when he had the white muscle disease?...Did you have to give him any sellinium for instance?...I know I had two goats one time and when the were born they were dragging their back legsand one could not even stand...So I had to give them sellinium for X amount of days...They recovered and were fine after that....Then someone told me to get our soil tested for sellinium deficiency, had it tested and it came back OK...Go figure....So I was kinda wondering what treatment you used?Since I also have Dexters, I don't want it to happen to them...Thanks...dexterlady
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Post by lakeportfarms on Jul 30, 2013 21:45:52 GMT -5
The night before we started to see him slow to get up and stagger around, and we immediately thought it may be selenium/white muscle. By the time we were able to get the BoSe from the vet early the next morning he was down and not able to get up. We did 2 cc's of BoSe immediately, at 3 days, and then 4 days later. By that time, though we hadn't seen him up yet, he was in different spots in the stall so we knew he was starting to move around a little bit, somehow. The final shot of BoSe after 12 or so days he jumped up when we pulled out the syringe. However, we would have lost him if we hadn't been able to get his temperature up. Because he couldn't move around he dropped down to 97 degrees, even under a heat lamp. When it was clear it wasn't enough we dug out a couple of old down jackets that we had, filled and stitched some cloth bags with white rice, and moved a microwave out into the barn where we constantly heated the rice filled bags and then placed them on him with the down jackets on top until we could get his temperature up to at least 100.5-101 degrees. I was not easy in sub zero temperatures, especially at night since we had to change the rice bags frequently, so there wasn't much sleep. We milked his mother in the stall (she was great) and then tubed him since he wouldn't take a bottle.
Anyway, now we routinely give our calves a BoSe shot at 3 days or so, and then another one at two months. We are very low in Selenium here and have constant SE-90 mineral available for them free choice. Our vet said that it is most likely to occur in your best growing calves. Though they'll get it from their mother prior to calving, it will not come through in nursing, thus the shots just after birth and at 2 months. By then they'll be licking the mineral. Be careful with the Selenium since you're not likely nearly as low as we are here in your soil, and they can overdose. A good mineral with a moderate amount of Selenium should be fine for most areas that are not as deficient. We haven't had any problems since, except this spring when we purchased a herd from Northern Michigan including a heifer calf that had just been born a week earlier. She started showing some weakness and she got a BoSe shot every few days. She never went down but she did show the signs for several weeks. Another heifer from the same herd born a couple of months later also showed some weakness and got the same treatment, but she was born in June so the weather was a bit more hospitable and she was normal within a few days and a BoSe shot. I would guess their mothers were deficient and hadn't been at our farm long enough with the high selenium mineral for it to kick in yet.
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dexterlady
member
Wife, mother of two daughters and five grand children
Posts: 647
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Post by dexterlady on Jul 30, 2013 22:51:54 GMT -5
Thanks Lakeport for the info...I will be sure to watch our calves close ( I do anyway) when ours are born....So far, know on wood, we haven't had any trouble with the calves...Hope we don't..Again, thanks for the info....dexterlady
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Post by lakeportfarms on Jul 31, 2013 16:47:13 GMT -5
I think that calves are not as prone to selenium weakness as goats are. For a while, we had a bunch of goats out clearing the brush and multi flora roses from the orchard along with the cows. We had all kinds of kidding issues with the goats, especially the Boers that we had. Weak kids, not able to get up and nurse. In hindsight it was probably due to the Selenium. Goats are all gone now except for the Mini Silky Fainters. They don't jump on my car and climb in the apple trees. Best of all we have a waiting list for the kids. Most breeders sell the doelings and bucklings for $600 each! We had 11 kids in January, all sold by two months, and we just had 7 this past week with one doe left to kid. Out of 5 does and one buck.
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