Suddenly Sick Calf

[DCC_Cattle]

Have a 2.5 month old Monopoly 2 heifer calf who went from being perfectly fine to laying around, breathing heavy and just very lethargic. Her temperature was 102.1. Had the vet out and he said she had a small case of pneumonia but then also diagnosed her with Ventrical Septum Deviation (hole in her heart). We are not sure about that since she has been fine until now. We gave her Nuflor for 3 days and then started on another medicine for the heart issue last night. Today seems to be her worst yet. She will nurse and munch on hay, but only stands for a few minutes at a time. Has anyone had any experience with a calf like this? Also, another possibility is that she could have been beat around by some new cows moved into her pen, could she have internal injuries?

 

[GoWyo]

If your vet used a stethoscope might have heard the heart not working right, so are you questioning that diagnosis?

 

[Quigly]

A calf could have a septal defect and not be showing any signs. Listening with a stethoscope to how the heart sounds is probably the only practical method of diagnosis you would want to use. If you really wanted, you could have the heart ultrasounded to follow the path of blood flow, but it isn't a procedure done much in cattle. With a defect like this, you get mixing of oxygenated and unoxygenated blood in the heart and would therefore have blood in circulation with a lower oxygen content then normal. If the lungs of your calf are compromised because of pneumonia, then they could be putting less oxygen then normal into the bloodstream, resulting in even lower oxygenation of the blood. This could result in a calf displaying little energy and not wanting to move much. Get her over the pneumonia and hopefully she gets back after it again. This is believed to be heritable, so I wouldn't add her to the breeding herd.

 

[DCC_Cattle]

Thanks for the replies! We lost her shortly after I posted on here. Our vet had us bring her in so they could take a look on the inside. All looked good, even her lungs until they got to the heart. There was a hole as big around as a man's finger between the right and left side. It's not that we questioned the original diagnosis (which was by vet students) we were just unsure because the vet didn't quite think it was the heart problem like the vet students. She was one of our best heifer calves so we were hoping for a recovery. You never want to believe it's that serious! We did ask what the chances are of the mom having another calf with the heart defect and he said he wouldn't sell her. There is a 1 in 1000 chance of it happening. We did learn it's known to be heritable in Hereford cattle.