hey jeff what is your phone number?i would like to talk to youJeff_Schroeder said:Similar situation, first time we ever had the problem and we lost seven to frothy bloat this year. I didn't even know the difference between it and regular bloat. We never lost more than three to any other causes combined in a single year before. It was extremely bad in this region while the burr clover was coming up, I heard of one ranch that lost 15 head. The overcast, damp mornings were by far and away the worst.
We tried bloat blocks, bloat mineral, chasing them around the field when it got bad, and excessive hay. While some of it may have worked to prevent it from being worse than it was, we lost five cows after all of those had been implemented.
Yes, it will kill one in an hour. We had it happen when we were moving the herd in to try and get one cow off of pasture and as we walked the herd in another started bloating. I watched her suffocate about 50-minutes later.
If you find a cow with it, a hose down the throat won't work for frothy bloat. The only solution we found for cows that were already bloating was a drench called Bloat Release or Therabloat. Bloat Release had them all back to normal within 20-minutes. The problem is catching it.
The only advice I have from the ordeal is to take your cows off of the pasture, feedlot them if you have to. The clover will still be there when you turn them back out but at least with burr clover, once it matures the dangers aren't nearly as bad. We haven't had any problems since it matured.
pweaver said:Let me throw this situation at you. Wednesday my wife and son came home from getting the bull checked for breeding soundness. They were gone about two hours. I was at work in town. They came home to find a cow down on her side, churning the air with all four legs, and her head arched up. They called me, I called the vet, he said it sounded like grass tetany. We haven't turned them out to pasture yet, they're still on round bales in a lot with no grass. The vet said give Banamine, we didn't have enough, and by the time the son drove 10 miles to the vet, she was gone. The vet said to search the internet for dry lot grass tetany and let him know what I find. Guess what, if harvested grass hay is low in magesium, cows can get grass tetany just like if they were on new spring grass. We hadn't changed hay, feed Right Now Mineral (Onyx right now), Mix 30 supplement, no changes of any kind. I had no idea they could get grass tetany on grass hay, but it makes sense if the hay is diffecient in Magnesium. Any ideas what I should do different? I suppose test the hay would be the first thing. What about mineral? Do you see something I should change? Been feeding Right Now for 6 - 8 years. She was a PB Simi with a decent Boardwalk steer about 6 weeks old. Pretty good milker. The website said cows in early lactation, milking good, are more likely to acquire winter/grass hay/feedlot tetany. The calves are started on creep and tonight saw the little guy stealing from another good milker.
you need to force feed feed grade magnesium oxide to them with some kind of feed , the mag is 54%, the you need to feed chelated hi mag mineralpweaver said:Let me throw this situation at you. Wednesday my wife and son came home from getting the bull checked for breeding soundness. They were gone about two hours. I was at work in town. They came home to find a cow down on her side, churning the air with all four legs, and her head arched up. They called me, I called the vet, he said it sounded like grass tetany. We haven't turned them out to pasture yet, they're still on round bales in a lot with no grass. The vet said give Banamine, we didn't have enough, and by the time the son drove 10 miles to the vet, she was gone. The vet said to search the internet for dry lot grass tetany and let him know what I find. Guess what, if harvested grass hay is low in magesium, cows can get grass tetany just like if they were on new spring grass. We hadn't changed hay, feed Right Now Mineral (Onyx right now), Mix 30 supplement, no changes of any kind. I had no idea they could get grass tetany on grass hay, but it makes sense if the hay is diffecient in Magnesium. Any ideas what I should do different? I suppose test the hay would be the first thing. What about mineral? Do you see something I should change? Been feeding Right Now for 6 - 8 years. She was a PB Simi with a decent Boardwalk steer about 6 weeks old. Pretty good milker. The website said cows in early lactation, milking good, are more likely to acquire winter/grass hay/feedlot tetany. The calves are started on creep and tonight saw the little guy stealing from another good milker.
I had a Nutrition class @ Iowa State University with Dr. Jurgens. He stated that he would keep cows on hi Mag. mineral year around. His thoughts were that cows would benifit greatly from this practice. He had many reasons, but I can't remember them all and if I could this post would be long. The risk for grass tetanus is increased for higher producing cows B/C of the higher requirements for Calcium on their bodies. Emergency treatment for grass tetanus would be Cal. intravenously with good results if caught in time. It can make vets look like witch Doctors and miracle workers.pweaver said:Let me throw this situation at you. Wednesday my wife and son came home from getting the bull checked for breeding soundness. They were gone about two hours. I was at work in town. They came home to find a cow down on her side, churning the air with all four legs, and her head arched up. They called me, I called the vet, he said it sounded like grass tetanus. We haven't turned them out to pasture yet, they're still on round bales in a lot with no grass. The vet said give Banamine, we didn't have enough, and by the time the son drove 10 miles to the vet, she was gone. The vet said to search the internet for dry lot grass tetanus and let him know what I find. Guess what, if harvested grass hay is low in magnesium, cows can get grass tetanus just like if they were on new spring grass. We hadn't changed hay, feed Right Now Mineral (Onyx right now), Mix 30 supplement, no changes of any kind. I had no idea they could get grass tetanus on grass hay, but it makes sense if the hay is deficient in Magnesium. Any ideas what I should do different? I suppose test the hay would be the first thing. What about mineral? Do you see something I should change? Been feeding Right Now for 6 - 8 years. She was a PB Simi with a decent Boardwalk steer about 6 weeks old. Pretty good milker. The website said cows in early lactation, milking good, are more likely to acquire winter/grass hay/feedlot tetanus. The calves are started on creep and tonight saw the little guy stealing from another good milker.