The Bovine Bugle

Farmer answers some common health questions about organic dairy farming

I wanted to answer some of the questions that have been coming in from some of the readers of The Bovine Bugle.

First, a couple of animal health questions. I want to preface these answers with the fact that I am not a veterinarian so don't take my ramblings as gospel on how to treat your animals. In serious cases, always consult a professional in your area.

Mini wrote and wondered how to tell if your cattle are having a common cold, as opposed to a more serious respiratory disease?
Generally, as long as the animal is eating well and looks bright and energetic, then probably that little cough and slight eye discharge is a minor virus. With something like pneumonia, the animals go off-feed, look dull and rough, have a deeper, raspier cough, and run a temperature. Always temp your animals (that's something I usually forget to do. It's a good indicator of what's going on. If I think something serious is going on, I have the vet visit so that he can give the animal a thorough going over and give a good listen to her lungs.

Jane from Maryland wanted to know if our cows get a hoof fungus similar to thrush in horses.
Yes, my cows sometimes get what we call "hoof rot", which is caused by a fungus. Our treatment is applying icthammol, a drawing salve, to the infected area, covering it with cotton batten, and wrapping the hoof with coflex hoof wrap. We leave the wrap on for three days, check the infection, and, if needed, wrap the hoof again. The icthamol container usually says it is used for horses.

Next time I'll answer all the questions about how our cows do in the cold environment of our open style barn.



--Jonathan (left), Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Cows eyes are recovered; we answer your questions

We had several questions and comments here on the blog about the eye infections that some of our milk cows had a few weeks ago. (See January 31, 2006 entry):

Robert, from Pennsylvania, wondered if the wound spray containing garlic would be painful in the eye. The spray is mainly aloe vera, with tinctures of garlic and comfrey. The antibiotic nature of garlic helps heal the infections. I am going to try a few drops in my eye to see how it feels, sometime.

Iris, from New Zealand, wrote about using colloidal silver to control eye problems in bovines. When I get a chance, I'll talk to some other organic farmers and some vets about this possible treatment and I'll report back here in the future.

And Muff, from Iceland, wanted to know what homeopathic remedies Dr. Woodard had suggested I use in treating the cows. For early stages of infection, he suggested trying hypericum, aconitumn, or euphrasia. If swelling had started, apis was a good choice. The aforementioned remedies were all at a 30c potency. And for the advanced cases, he recommended silica at a 200c potency.

All eight of the cows are completely healed now, with nice, clear eyes once again. The next time we have that problem, I should be better prepared to tackle the outbreak and prevent the infections from getting too severe.

--Jonathan (left), Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Keeping an eye on infected eyes in the dairy herd

The last couple of weeks we have been battling some type of conjunctivitis that has infected 8 cows in the milking herd. If it were the middle of summer you would think we were having pink eye, but not in the middle of winter. We've seen this before at this time of year, and we think it is caused by moldy feed.

The first sign that a cow has it is an eye that is watering
excessively, then she starts squinting with the same eye because of the discomfort. The eye will then cloud over and possibly become swollen. This is the peak of the disease, and then the swelling will go down, the eye will clear, and everything is back to normal.

This time around the infections seemed a little more severe. We even had one cow that had both eyes infected, something we had never seen before. The ages of the infected animals ranged from two years to almost 10 years, so no one age group was affected by the problem. I did contact Dr. Steve Woodward in Waterbury, a vet who uses many alternative medicines in his practice, and after discussing what was going on with the cows he mailed me several homeopathic remedies to try on the cows. I also use Dr. Paul's wound spray to drench the infected eyes. The spray, with active ingredients like garlic and comfrey, was okay to use on mucous membranes.

We haven't had any new cases for three weeks, and some of the animals I treated early with the spray and remedies didn't have such severe symptoms as the first few cows that contracted the disease. On a conventional farm, antibiotics would have been used to control the problem, but with some well-prescribed remedies and some "TLC" our cows came through this bump in the road just fine without using what would be considered the conventional treatment.
--

Jonathan (left), Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Johne's Disease in cows explained

I wanted to answer a question a reader sent in after a recent blog. Liz had to cull her home dairy cows due to Johne's Disease, and she wanted to know if we test our cows for the disease and if we had a "clean" herd. I was very sorry to hear of her plight, and I wanted to address the subject.

Johne's Disease is an incurable bacterial infection that occurs mostly in ruminants, such as dairy cows, and it affects the lower small intestine. Over time the intestinal wall, in reaction to the infection, becomes thickened, impairing its ability to absorb nutrients. The animal, while maintaining a healthy appetite, appears to start wasting away.

Our state was offering funding to test dairy herds, and we decided to enroll our herd and have been working with our vet, Dr. Steve, to do the required testing. The first test was to blood test all the milking animals. This was a simple test, the results came back fairly quickly, and Dr. Steve told us the results were the best he had ever seen. Since Johne's is most often introduced into a herd through purchased animals, we felt confident our herd would test well because we haven't purchased any animals in the last 30 years.

To confirm the blood test results, we were then required to do fecal samples on 30 animals at least 36 months old. The samples were taken the end of September and sent off to be cultured. The results won't be back until next month. We are very confident that our herd will be declared Johne's-free.

This is important for several reasons. In the future, when we sell animals to other farmers, and Johne's-free status may make our animals worth more. Knowing our herd is free of this disease lets us know our animals are healthy and will not suffer health or production problems due Johne's. If any readers want more information, they can visit the website, http://johnes.org.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Up to our armpits in trouble at monthly herd clinic

Today was monthly herd clinic with Dr. Steve Wadsworth. We had the list of the animals to check all made and the cows all sorted when Dr. Steve came into the barn. The heifer calves that were born the end of March/beginning of April were the first animals to be attended to. Dr. Steve dehorned them right away, so that he could check them in an hour or so before he left the farm to make sure they were fine.

Then we started running animals into the milking parlor to do preg. checks and post-calving checks. The fresh cows were doing fine. About half the cows we checked for pregnancies were pregnant, a little below our normal success rate. The open, or not bred, cows were all cycling normally so we will catch them next time. We had one last cow to check in one of the maternity pens. Dena, a 10-year old cow, had not eaten her grain last night or this morning so we wanted Dr. Steve to check her over. We thought she was just having a little indigestion. Much to our surprise, and Dr. Steve's, Dena had a twisted stomach, or DA (displaced abomasum). This was the same thing our other cow, Bess, had surgery for a few weeks ago.

Dr. Steve had another clinic to do that morning, but he said he would be back in about 2 hours to do the surgery to fix the problem. The surgery went fine, and Dena was an exceptionally good patient. Dr. Steve felt that the poor quality forage we were having to feed the cows had probably caused the problem for Dena. She was alert and fine when Steve headed off to his next call.

Below: After making a small incision in the cow's stomach, Dr. Steve inserts a needle and tubing to allow for pent up gas to escape. The vet puts the tubing in his ear so that he can hear for the last of the gas to go, bringing great relief for Dena, an exceptionally good patient.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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VITAMINS AND MINERALS FOR A NEW MOTHER

Irma and her newborn calf are doing great! I had given Irma a homeopathic remedy, calcarea carbonica, the last few days prior to calving to help her system handle the demand for milk production. Calcarea carbonica is made from the middle layer of the oyster shell, and is used as a prophylactic remedy to prevent milk fever in fresh cows. After calving I added electrolytes to her drinking water to help her with stress of calving. The electrolytes are in granular form in an 8 ounce container. I add half a container to 5 gallons of water. The electrolytes are essential minerals the cow needs but may become deficient in during times of stress or when feed intake is reduced. The product I used contains potassium, calcium, and magnesium. I can't be sure if these pre- and post-natal therapies are the reason Irma is doing so well, but she is doing much better than the last few cows that calved. Cows calving during the winter months and older cows calving are more apt to have metabolic problems such as a lack of calcium or magnesium. The cow then loses her appetite, and her condition can worsen. By giving the cow homeopathic remedies or electrolytes we can alleviate these problems and keep the cow eating and feeling good.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont