We have 30 head of beef steers, all under 6 months, about 5 of them are coughing, and have runny noses,(whitish in color). We have black legged, and wormed them all. what could be causing this, and what should we do?? Any suggestions would be appreciated!!

-- Leslie Cote (lesliecote@yahoo.com), March 31, 2001

Answers

Response to diagnosing pneumonia??

some form of pneumonia. Pennicillan works for pneumonia.

-- Suzanne (hugging_calves@yahoo.com), March 31, 2001.

Response to diagnosing pneumonia??

Were they born to you or were they shipped? If they were born to your herd I guess it would depend how long they've had these symptoms. Do their heads hang low? Are they acting sick, are they eating good still? Never hurts to vaccinate them, just in case. I definately would watch them close.

-- Pat (mikulptrc@aol.com), March 31, 2001.

Pat, the calves are from my inlaws dairy farm,(beef/holstein cross) we've raised them up from bottle. Their heads aren't really hanging, and only one is acting really sick. One thing, they are eating good. We've raised so many calves this way over the last few years, and have never had this trouble. It started to become noticeable after the weather started changing back and forth, warm and cold. We've given shots of pen., I guess we should repeat the doses????

-- leslie cote (lesliecote@yahoo.com), April 03, 2001.

Pennicillan is nearly useless on pneumonia these days. You'll be throwing money away. Mycotil or Nuflor will knock it out - Mycotil is better of the two.

Cattle with pneumonia will have a deep cough, often have runny/snotty noses and run a fever, quit eating if they get really sick from it.

Good luck! Tom Langan

-- Thomas Langan (thomas@langan.org), April 05, 2001.

Try giving them some Probios & worm them 5 days later with another wormer. Rotate your wormers all summer! Could be lung worms. Also you can give them some Nutri-Drench. Good luck,

Robin

-- Robin (bluemoonacres@aol.com), April 07, 2001.

Thanks everyone! We were successful in treatment, the steers all look really good. Leslie.

-- leslie cote (lesliecote@yahoo.com), April 10, 2001.