# Another problematic calf



## Nitram (Apr 2, 2011)

I can't remember what its called I have a calf born last tues today I discovered it's front two feet are curled back at the hocks, the ligaments are too short and haven't stretched out yet. I had this problem on another calf bout 5 years ago on that one I used a cut piece of PVC as a splint with elastic bandage per vets direction. In that case it didn't work and the calf lasted three weeks until we went out of town for the weekend found it in the middle of the pasture (had three horses with them back then) so I blamed the nags. Long winded but...should I try the splint again or just hope it works itself out? Its been sucking and watch that today after I noticed it was in the same area two days in a row, it can stand up and nurse. What do we think? You guys have been great with advice so I am very thankful Martin


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I've had what your describing before but different I think. Rather large calf and it could straighten it's legs out but the muscles in that area weren't strong enough to support it's weight, always works out on it's own in our case.


----------



## dbergh (Jun 3, 2010)

Dealing with a similar situation with one of our calves. Vet say's selenium deficiency in the cow. Splinted the hind legs and gave her a dose of antibiotics to keep her healthy. Having to bottle feed her twice a day to keep her strength up until she can get hooked on to Mom by herself. Not sure if she will make it but figure we gotta give her a fighting chance. Momma is a good cow and will hopefully let the calf get with the program. Time will tell!


----------



## Nitram (Apr 2, 2011)

One other thing I forgot to mention is that last winter had that cow over at the other farm with the bull to keep him company so didn't she her but once a week. she lost her calf not sure if it was still born or if it ran off etc but never found the carccus perhaps in the creek but thinking of culling her this fall...hate to she's a nice big black angus put together well but if she is throwing malformed calves...


----------



## Nitram (Apr 2, 2011)

dbergh said:


> Dealing with a similar situation with one of our calves. Vet say's selenium deficiency in the cow. Splinted the hind legs and gave her a dose of antibiotics to keep her healthy. Having to bottle feed her twice a day to keep her strength up until she can get hooked on to Mom by herself. Not sure if she will make it but figure we gotta give her a fighting chance. Momma is a good cow and will hopefully let the calf get with the program. Time will tell!


That's what it was called per the vet back then...also said it can be caused by some weed if ate at a certain point of development


----------



## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

I wonder if a mineral supplement like Hi Mag for the mother would help? Would it trickle down to the calf?
If the calf can stand and nurse then I would be hesitant to step in right now. Once on milk and the calf gets things in order I would think it would come around. Calves are pretty flexible in the new joints.
Does it stand or walk with the foot buckled under? If it does then standing/walking may not be helping any.
Is there a way you could do some physical therapy on the calf? If you could slowly stretch the joint out some, allow the ligaments to stretch, it tends to reason that would help.
I have not had much luck with splinting. It always seems to rub sores and I end up dealing with raw places and infection. This time of year might not be as bad being cooler weather.


----------



## Nitram (Apr 2, 2011)

Its in a bad spot today to try to get to it. It seems to stand fairly well with the front two buckled back at the hock seem to remember dad saying they sometimes straighten out on there own if they can stand to suck. 5 yrs ago I had to supplement cause it wasn't able to for the first week but then it started walking pretty good buckled back but splinted then left for the weekend after it was nursing good for a week. Think I will keep an eye on it for now unless there is reason to step in?


----------



## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

I would observe and look for signs of progress. If there seems to be signs of improvement I would not step in. That is just me.
Best advice may be to follow your gut on this.


----------



## hog987 (Apr 5, 2011)

As long as the calf is healty they usually get going on there own, I had one once that took about 2 months to get better. Once had a calf with a kink in its neck that never did straighting out. Just make sure it getting enough to eat and not getting weak.


----------



## barnrope (Mar 22, 2010)

It's called Big Dumb Bull Syndrome. We all get it to some extent some times. Good luck!


----------



## prairie (Jun 20, 2008)

We used to have an occasional calf like that. We suspect oxygen deprivation, during a long drawn out birth as the main cause. Most of our calves that had the curled back feet eventually came out of it. This was mainly due to doing physical therapy 3-5 times per day on the calf. Very time consuming, but the alternative was usually a bullet. Now we don't have to deal with the physical therapy or a bullet, and life is much happier.
About 10 years ago we switched from April 1st calving while still feeding hay, to May 1st calving on green grass and have not seen that problem since. Most all our calving and calving season problems disappeared, labor much reduced, calving death loss all but eliminated, and more money in our pocket.
I seldom see a calf born anymore, maybe 1-2 out of 180-190. Now we only pull a calf every 2-3 years, out of 30-35 heifers and 150-160 cows. Used to pull at least 10% of heifers calves every year, an ocassional bad presentation on a cow. I check on cows and heifers at least once a day, but try to check twice if I have time, mainly to make tagging calves easier. Our previously winter born calves were fairly easy to catch for well over 24 hours, but these spring born calves are sometimes hard to catch at 12 hours.
I guess my point is that we were always treating symptoms. Until we started spring calving on green grass, we never solved the real problem, which in our case was winter calving.
Treat the current symptoms, but look for a permanent cure to the cause of those symptoms.


----------



## NDVA HAYMAN (Nov 24, 2009)

I had one like that which had contracted tendons. Never really over came that situation. Hope it's not that. Good luck with yours. Mike


----------



## Nitram (Apr 2, 2011)

Think it is Mike...the joint at the hocks are swollen/oversized. Better view watching him suck this eve stands on tippy toed abit then down to "ankle " . Sucked for 10 min so think he may be fine?


----------



## Nitram (Apr 2, 2011)

mlappin said:


> It's called Big Dumb Bull Syndrome. We all get it to some extent some times.	Good luck!


How did you know it was a Bull or were you talking bout me! LOL


----------



## barnrope (Mar 22, 2010)

I wrote that too late at night. LOL Let me explain.

When we were buying Holstien bull calves from the local dairy farms we ran across this quite often. The calves affected were always bulls and always the large ones. Most were 100lbs. or more. We would take them, and then when the calf was healthy we would pay 50% of or less of a normal calf's value. I can't remember ever loosing one. We just used PVC splints we made and cotton wound dressing to pad the PVC and wrapped it all up with vet wrap. They were a pain to deal with. It took extra time and care with a lot of extra tubing and pen cleaning. Seems like the feet would straighten in 1 - 3 weeks.

All the dairy guys called it big dumb bull syndrome. It was common enough I figured most everyone had it at one time or another. Now looking back it was probably more of a local problem. I haven't seen much of it in our beef cow calf herd.


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Now that you mention it and describe it barnrope that's pretty much what we had when we used to milk cows. Big beefy brutus of a bull calf but we never messed with splints. Maybe a couple times year would have it, maybe 4 times tops. We always figured it came from over feeding our dry cows.


----------



## Nitram (Apr 2, 2011)

Update: he's doing much better today walking on tippy toes and not going down on hocks. Ligaments seems to be stretching out! Yeah! Guess Grandpa's saying "The more you stir it the worse it stinks". Let nature take it's course.


----------



## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

Glad to hear he is doing better.
An old Vet once told me that 80% of the things he treats would take care of themselves. Then he smiled and said he needed the money.


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Nitram said:


> Update: he's doing much better today walking on tippy toes and not going down on hocks. Ligaments seems to be stretching out! Yeah! Guess Grandpa's saying "The more you stir it the worse it stinks". Let nature take it's course.


Good for you.

had a loss in January, about the middle of the month we had a warm spell, hit 60 on the last day with three inches of rain. Could barely find a spot dry enough to fill the feeders. had to get one of the four wheel drive tractors out just to move the _empty_ feeders. Next day had a 400 lb steer stuck in the mud. Legs went straight down into it and was half way up his sides in the mud. Cows must have stirred up a sidehill seep or spring while eating. Needless to say I about froze my ass of getting him out of the mud. Was 58 to 60 the day before, when I found him the very net day it was around 28 with a windchill of 16. Going from 60 to 16 in a day sucks. Anyways, got him out with the skid steer, the pallet forks and some straps. took him in hte shop to warm em up and to dry out. About the time he got chipper I moved him in to the cow barn in a temporary pen. Several days later when he appeared no worse for wear and had no signs of pneumonia coming on I moved him back with the cows. Almost one month later to the day one day he was fine when I was filling feeders and running around kicking his heals up, the next day he was deader than a doornail.


----------



## Nitram (Apr 2, 2011)

I feel for ya. It's aggravating when you do everything you can it looks like it's gonna work out then boom! I went to the concrete pad bordered with railroad ties because of mud issues... cows pulling hips out. Good luck on the rest of the season.


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Nitram said:


> I feel for ya. It's aggravating when you do everything you can it looks like it's gonna work out then boom! I went to the concrete pad bordered with railroad ties because of mud issues... cows pulling hips out. Good luck on the rest of the season.


First time I've ever had a calf stuck in the mud. It might get mighty sloppy to the point of having to use the tracked skid steer to feed round bales but this winter was exceptionally bad for mud. Get froze up good, then thaw and rain, then frost at night and mid to upper thirties on some days so then the frost just adds to the mud.

The hired man already hauled up about 30 yards of stone from the RR right of way and the drives could still use a little more.


----------

