Help!!!! Newborn calf with white muscle disease!

[Cowgirl94]

This great heifer calf was born yesterday and was super alert and everything looked great today she will not get up and when I pick her up her muscles are extremely tight. Her breathing is getting heavy and her temp is 99.5. I know it is not structure issues and we are just about postive it's white muscle disease. And we are deficient of selenium in our area. We can not get in contact with our vet and have no vitamin e shots to give. We have multi min on hand but that's it. PLEASE HELP!!!! What can we give her to save her??

 

[b_kackley]

Give her the multimin as directed,and B12 if you can get it. Banamine won't hurt either.

 

[Cowgirl94]

We are looking right now to see if any neighbors have any Bo-Se and if that doesnt work then we will try multimin

 

[Cowgirl94]

Does anyone know if this calf does make it if it causes future problems? Would we be able to keep her?

 

[b_kackley]

As far as i know there should not be any future problems. On this I am not sure. I can tell you that the multimin has what you need in it. Good luck!

 

[b_kackley]

Make sure that if it is white muscle that you may want to dose your cows prior to calving. I would also make sure they have high selenium mineral in front of them. You probably already do that but the multimin can be used on those cows. Might help.

 

[Cowgirl94]

We give all our cattle multimin shots throughout the year for prevention. Which is why I don't understand how this calf could of gotten white muscle. Always has to happen to the best show calves... Never fails.

 

[librarian]

I have saved them with Bo-Se, and I have lost some.  You have to get right on it.
I would give it 10cc right into the muscle.  Usually you give them 5, but that is more for prevention than treatment.
If its not better, I would give it 5 tomorrow, but if you give them too much its toxic. Ask a vet how much is too much.
Sometimes they are okay, if you treat it immediately.
I saved one that was never right, although it did survive. Always acted kind of brain damaged and held its held turned to one side. She never bred, so she got beefed out.

 

[DSCSD]

Mu-Se is all you need... dealt with it before

 

[alvinpierce192]

I have a calf that is 1 1/2 months old and has a healthy appetite and is alert. 5 days ago he was staggering with no control of hind legs. In a matter of hours he couldn't get up and his neck was stiff and head brought way back over his shoulders. At birth he had 1cc of multimin. I talked to a neighbor and he assumed white muscle. I gave him 5cc of BoSe and 5cc Penicillin and 1 teaspoon of right time mineral in mouth. Had vet look at him, he gave him a shot of vitamin B. vet also thought it was white muscle.    Where do I go.  Please help!!

 

[cflem]

I would check on thiamine deficiencies. That's what the symptoms sound like to me. We see it in cattle sometimes especially if they are stressed. You can get injectable thiamine from your vet. This is also called polio. 

 

[alvinpierce192]

WOW!! thanks what dosage and how long.

 

[simba]

I would check on thiamine deficiencies. That's what the symptoms sound like to me. We see it in cattle sometimes especially if they are stressed. You can get injectable thiamine from your vet. This is also called polio.

I agree with cflem. We treat newborn calves with a 5cc dose the first time they display the symptoms and then 2cc a day for about a week. After that we watch them closely and treat as needed. With your calf being older I'd probably double that. If it is a thiamine deficiency the calf will bounce back like nothing was ever wrong within hours of the treatment as long as it isn't too late. Good luck, keep us posted!

 

[cflem]

In the feedlots we called them brainers because they would get down and thrash around on the ground. We would give them thiamine in the vein and in a few minutes they would get up and walk off.  You can use fortified b vitamins if it has thiamine in it. We also see it in goats
Sometimes. I have saved several of them with the b vitamins if it was all I had. Just have to give a pretty big dose.

 

[alvinpierce192]

I talked to the vet and asked him if Thiamine was whats happening. The vet said that he already gave the calf some thiamine for a couple days. is there any other possibilities?

 

[alvinpierce192]

I gave the calf another 5cc of thiamine about 6 hours ago and still haven't seen any change. He was hungry when I fed him though.