Post by hazelsmilker on Apr 14, 2007 0:08:08 GMT -5
Hello all,
I haven't been around much because it's been so busy here. Hazel calved on April 1 sometime between 3am and 6am. There was no calf yet when my son checked her at 3am, and when I went down to the barn at 6am Hazel was licking and talking to a dead calf. This was a very sad thing to see; this is the first calf I've ever lost. It was a large bull, so we initially assumed that it just hadn't survived the calving. However when the vet came out to treat Hazel's milk fever a few hours later, she noticed that the calf had cataracts on both eyes and suggested we send it in to the vet lab for a necropsy. We also sent in the placenta (Hazel went down just after passing it, so she hadn't eaten it) and a sample of Hazel's blood. As the vet suspected, Hazel's blood showed evidence that she had been exposed to the BVD virus. The calf had some other anomalies that were consistent with Hazel being exposed to the virus in mid to late August. I remember that she had something that seemed to be a mild cold at that time. I now realize that it was BVD. She didn't catch it from a bovine; there weren't any nearby. It may have been carried by deer (there are lots of these around), transmitted by insects, or possibly by sheep in a nearby pasture. Louis the II had it just after she did; neither she or he were very sick. However it severely affected the calf she was carrying. It had probably died a day before birth; if it had survived it would have been blind and had other serious problems. I am really kicking myself because I didn't vaccinate Hazel. I thought that because there are no other bovines around, I didn't need to worry about communicable diseases.
I'm posting all this in the hopes that it will help another family cow owner avoid this heartbreak. Please consider vaccinating for BVD. If you decide to vaccinate, don't use a vaccine with killed virus; it won't be as effective. However, if you vaccinate with the live virus, don't do it while your cow is carrying a calf as the vaccination can affect the calf much the same way BVD itself does. There are currently 2 types of BVD virus; Type I and Type II. According to the lab report, Hazel had Type I, which is generally quite mild. Type II is apparently much more virulent.
Here's a link to some information about bovine viral diarrhea.
www.vetmed.auburn.edu/~brockkv/bvdv.htm
Mina
I haven't been around much because it's been so busy here. Hazel calved on April 1 sometime between 3am and 6am. There was no calf yet when my son checked her at 3am, and when I went down to the barn at 6am Hazel was licking and talking to a dead calf. This was a very sad thing to see; this is the first calf I've ever lost. It was a large bull, so we initially assumed that it just hadn't survived the calving. However when the vet came out to treat Hazel's milk fever a few hours later, she noticed that the calf had cataracts on both eyes and suggested we send it in to the vet lab for a necropsy. We also sent in the placenta (Hazel went down just after passing it, so she hadn't eaten it) and a sample of Hazel's blood. As the vet suspected, Hazel's blood showed evidence that she had been exposed to the BVD virus. The calf had some other anomalies that were consistent with Hazel being exposed to the virus in mid to late August. I remember that she had something that seemed to be a mild cold at that time. I now realize that it was BVD. She didn't catch it from a bovine; there weren't any nearby. It may have been carried by deer (there are lots of these around), transmitted by insects, or possibly by sheep in a nearby pasture. Louis the II had it just after she did; neither she or he were very sick. However it severely affected the calf she was carrying. It had probably died a day before birth; if it had survived it would have been blind and had other serious problems. I am really kicking myself because I didn't vaccinate Hazel. I thought that because there are no other bovines around, I didn't need to worry about communicable diseases.
I'm posting all this in the hopes that it will help another family cow owner avoid this heartbreak. Please consider vaccinating for BVD. If you decide to vaccinate, don't use a vaccine with killed virus; it won't be as effective. However, if you vaccinate with the live virus, don't do it while your cow is carrying a calf as the vaccination can affect the calf much the same way BVD itself does. There are currently 2 types of BVD virus; Type I and Type II. According to the lab report, Hazel had Type I, which is generally quite mild. Type II is apparently much more virulent.
Here's a link to some information about bovine viral diarrhea.
www.vetmed.auburn.edu/~brockkv/bvdv.htm
Mina