Post by BlueFeathers on May 22, 2010 15:16:42 GMT -5
I'm at a loss with our Mocha. Since April 27th, she's been lethargic, wild-eyed scared & dazed & confused, off feed, milk production reduced from 4.25gallons daily (TAD). After ruling our Rabies, poisoning, Johnes, and bloat, we treated for grass tetany with Molasses & epsom salts(magnesium), and 10cc of High level B complex 2x/day. We eventually upped the Mag to 1.33 cups per day before we saw improvement in her. At that point, she finally started getting runny poop, but still not diarrhea. Milk production started inching back up to 3g from a low of 2.25g daily.
Now 2 days ago, her milk dropped to 1.5 for the whole day. She was all fuzzy(hairs standing up), kinda hunched up, not eating or drinking anything & lethargic. She didn't move out of an area of 20x20feet, just laid down most of the day. I researched ketosis in Rebhun's diseases of dairy cattle (a huge tome), got 1/2-1cup of molasses in her every 3 hours, Rebhun's recommends 12GRAMS of niacin orally daily for stopping fat mobilization that occurs during ketosis. Got her some sweet orchard grass hay and continued Vit B shots & Mag also free choice kelp(which she ate a fair bit). Yesterday afternoon, she was looking better, was up and ate on pasture all day & we decided to not milk her in the eve since she'd only given us 3/4gal yesterday morning.
This morning we brought her in to milk & she looked terrible, shivering, didn't eat, wouldn't take her molasses water, grain or hay. Only gave 3/4 gallon of milk even though we hadn't milked the night before (we are TAD). Yesterday we tested for ketones on the human ketostrips & had negative results. Her temp is normal at 99-100 F. She doesn't groan or grunt when she gets up or down, she's always been a slow walking cow, but we can still get her to speed up easily. So we don't think it's hardware disease, but we gave her a magnet last night. But she does try to eat all sorts of non-food and non-metallic things, so...
In addition to her shivering this morning (it's 50+ degrees F and almost sunny), her back leg muscles were trembling or twitching.
Our vet (who doesn't know dairy cows) is on his way to IV fluid & draw blood. He says the ketone strips should be accurate, I thought I'd read that they don't always work. He's grumpy with us for treating with Mag, because now it will throw off the blood work, but the fact is, we saw improvement with the Mag. He also says that it's unlikely that she could have two different issues concurrently. ARGH!
Any ideas anybody? Milkmaid or anyone else, are you familiar with the text I refer to? Is it any good? I've been reading in Merck also, but our vet says Smith & Kline is better, I haven't heard of it.
Thanks,
ALoria
Now 2 days ago, her milk dropped to 1.5 for the whole day. She was all fuzzy(hairs standing up), kinda hunched up, not eating or drinking anything & lethargic. She didn't move out of an area of 20x20feet, just laid down most of the day. I researched ketosis in Rebhun's diseases of dairy cattle (a huge tome), got 1/2-1cup of molasses in her every 3 hours, Rebhun's recommends 12GRAMS of niacin orally daily for stopping fat mobilization that occurs during ketosis. Got her some sweet orchard grass hay and continued Vit B shots & Mag also free choice kelp(which she ate a fair bit). Yesterday afternoon, she was looking better, was up and ate on pasture all day & we decided to not milk her in the eve since she'd only given us 3/4gal yesterday morning.
This morning we brought her in to milk & she looked terrible, shivering, didn't eat, wouldn't take her molasses water, grain or hay. Only gave 3/4 gallon of milk even though we hadn't milked the night before (we are TAD). Yesterday we tested for ketones on the human ketostrips & had negative results. Her temp is normal at 99-100 F. She doesn't groan or grunt when she gets up or down, she's always been a slow walking cow, but we can still get her to speed up easily. So we don't think it's hardware disease, but we gave her a magnet last night. But she does try to eat all sorts of non-food and non-metallic things, so...
In addition to her shivering this morning (it's 50+ degrees F and almost sunny), her back leg muscles were trembling or twitching.
Our vet (who doesn't know dairy cows) is on his way to IV fluid & draw blood. He says the ketone strips should be accurate, I thought I'd read that they don't always work. He's grumpy with us for treating with Mag, because now it will throw off the blood work, but the fact is, we saw improvement with the Mag. He also says that it's unlikely that she could have two different issues concurrently. ARGH!
Any ideas anybody? Milkmaid or anyone else, are you familiar with the text I refer to? Is it any good? I've been reading in Merck also, but our vet says Smith & Kline is better, I haven't heard of it.
Thanks,
ALoria