Dehydration

[WoodSpryte Farm/Tiffany]

we have been battling dehydration with Clarice. She has had diarreha for some time. cant blamb on the grass because not out on it that much. sorta green, no grain to speak of, very fiberous, not abnormally stinky, but has had this for weeks. I tried to decrease grain and that has not worked. thought the creek water had some run off in it from the crap in pasture so quit pulling from there. have checked, emptied and scrubbed the trough. I started with electrolytes in her feed. Im now considering a saline drench to MAKE her drink, per the vet. she drinks but only wants the creek water, even tho its NASTY. the other water is from the hose and she doesnt want to drink it. her skin near her head and upper neck are tenting, eyes are sunken slightly. Im thinking there must be something going on. I am FRESH out of money after vet bill for sheep and then $150 into the vacuum pump that STILL IS NOT WORKING. even took it in to be worked on. was a 4 hr trip for the boys round trip, up to Portable milkers. they worked on it cleaned it and now we have very LITTLE vacuum.
So I am out of money LITERALLY have NONE right now, so I need some ideas to get me thru this. we have been contemplating not the best things for clarice. she took 5 months to get bred last year, and now we are 5 months again and that is with a bull in the pasture. of course she will not catch till i get her healthy. But it seems there is always something, and she is becoming a money pit. we love her dearly, but I cant keep dumping good money after bad here. So ideas there people.. please..
thanks.. its been a day.. I have been hand milking 4 cows now for 3 days and the RA is NOT happy hence.. neither am I.
thanks for ideas
tif

[Faith]

If there's chlorine in your water she probably will not drink it. I love Newman Turners book Cure your Own Cattle. He recommends fasting for infertility and a cleanse to the system. According to him, it worked for many maladys. It is only 10.00 from acres usa.

Do you have 1/2 Redmond trace mineral salt and 1/2 kelp out free choice? That seems to prevent a lot of issues on our farm. We also add some Calcium and Phosphorus for the Macro minerals, especially if your field is not balanced. Not sure that this will help immediately but may be good info for future. Sorry for your troubles.

[marseydoats]

Can you get some orange gatorade in her? Any kind would probably help, but I had horses willingly drink orange out of the trough.
Hope you figure out what's wrong soon!

[ranchgrl]

Your hose water may have chlorine or other things in it that make it taste different. When we take cattle to shows that have chlorinated water, we have had good luck by watering them using buckets and adding something to cover the taste/smell.

We sometimes use molasses or even some kind of soda, like Coke or Pepsi. We have also used powdered Gatorade or Powerade. With her being dehydrated, this is probably a better choice. Some people also swear by adding a little powdered mineral to the water.

[Becky]

Tiff, I hate to even mention this, but have you considered Johnes?
As far as the dehydration, if she wants to drink out of the creek, I would let her. It has got to better than her protesting the hose water, going on strike, and not drinking water at all

Becky

[WoodSpryte Farm/Tiffany]

ya know I just talked to Mike and he said the water is soft water!! YIKES... so maybe that is the issue. the strange thing is she has been drinking it right along and been fine. then she got the diarreha. Now yesterday she went to pasture. didnt want any at first then spent the day packing it in. We have redmonds salt but ran out of Kelp and cannot find it locally right now. The amish normally carry it but didnt have a high nuff demand. Its too costly to ship, would be $38 to ship it on top of the $55 a bag. so none of that. She has been tested for Johnnes in the past, a few times. I asked the vet, she said she could do it, but honestly didnt feel that was the problem. at 10 she would have likely shown signs before now. not a guarantee, but possibly. her poop looked better yesterday. I forced more bounce back, more salt and minerals in her feed. she was NOT happy. I am interested in the fast thing. but think probably not a good idea for a milk cow (or cow milking) I may look for that book in the future. I have tried the gatoraid before and she would have NOTHING to do with it. But maybe if I put in her feed, I didnt try that. thanks for all the great ideas guys. I got some sleep and not feeling so negative today. sorry about that. Im normally a pretty upbeat person but one blow after another just put me to my knees. On the good news.. the premie lamb is doing well. she has graduated to having to wear a diaper because she wants follow me all around the house. the milker still not working right. Not sure what is happening, but we just are not pulling vacuum. its frustrating. so it takes a long time to milk the girls. and we have to hold the claw the entire time. hopefully today they answer the phone at portable milkers so we can trouble shoot the vacuum.

[marseydoats]

wishing you a much better day today!

[AnnB (NE)]

Johnes has an incubation of 2-10 years and previous negative tests do not rule it out, an infected cow can turn positive at any time.

Ann B

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[simplynaturalfarm]

Ann knows what she is talking about - it can pop up at any time and it is NOT uncommon to have a 7-10 year old cow go symptomatic.
I believe a really good way to hurt a dairy cow (or any cow) is to fast them unnecessarily - they are ruminants and as such are intended to eat all day long and if they aren't eating they should be ruminating what they ate. There are times when 24 hour fast is necessary (like when DH had to do throat surgery to extract a wedged beet in a cow's throat that wouldn't come out any other way . . . ) or when an animal gets acidotic etc, but they are then given very poor hay, not NO hay. DId I mention I think fasting is a horrible idea because they are ruminants??
You know the situation (hard to get her bred, episodes like this that cost you a decent bit in electrolytes, vet work etc), so only you can say what you should do. I am far too practical and would probably end up eating her but I would test for Johnes first simply for peace of mind because of all the other cows you have on the property.
Heather

[farmwench]

Try to get some kind of probiotics in her. Can't hurt, and if she's dehydrated her gut is already slow and her gut bacteria is bound to be off. I'd also dose her with aspirin 2 or 3 times a day for a few days to see if it helps. Again, I've never seen it hurt one of my critters, and sometimes it's just the ticket to make them feel well enough to work through whatever the actual problem is. For a 1000 lb cow, for instance, I'd assume the bute dose would be 1 tab (1000 mg) and I'd assume 1000 mg of aspirin would be about equivalent, so I'd give 3 aspirin as a single dose, and call it close enough.
Does she have a rumen magnet in? If not, I'd give her one. In odd cases like this, I'm in favor of the shotgun (figurative, not literal!) approach to treatment using any cheap, readily attainable and easy to use gimmick that doesn't pose side effect issues, so drugs are way down the list for me. Hope you get her straightened out, totally healthy and bred very quickly. Best of luck. Keep us posted.

[WoodSpryte Farm/Tiffany]

She was feeling a bit better today. she was on pasture all day yesterday. got electrolytes again in the am with milking. Today production was up... ALLOT.. she got more electrolyte gel, salt, minerals, molassas in her grain. she was not impressed but did eat it finally. I dragged her water from the creek, and she drank 10 gallons! so.. I have to agree, I think you are all right with her NOT liking the water. It amazes me how she can like the water fine for over a year, and now will refuse to drink it to the point of getting sick. I did see her drinking the BAD water today, but not allot. so once we get the milk pump thing fixed will work on hauling the water from the creek.