Damaged Weanlen

Shauny2010

Have a Beautiful charli bull weanling about 7 months old but I can sell him because he got Foot-rot a couple of months back. I noticed him lame after the first day so after a vet call out and 3 bottles of Antibiotics emptied into him hes still not 100%.The bottom line is if I bring him to the mart and declare him I`ll get next to nothing for him.
Ive decided to keep him and fatten him up so heres my questions

Would he be good enough to Kill before next winter at about 16 months old and what weight should he be, hes currently about 330kgs

Would it be wise to send a single animal like the off to the factory when he is fat as they could pay whatever they like ?

EGAR

No idea as the factory etc but a farmer around here uses warm water with sea salt, dries it very thoroughly and doesn't let the affected animal onto muddy/wet ground. Works for him, he recommended it for an abused horse I took in and it worked.

That is presuming your weanling can be handled in a crush 2x daily.

Shauny2010

I may try that as I cant keep pumping antibiotics into him, the Original swelling was very bad it went from his hoof right up to his knee. The swelling is 90% gone but I think his lower hoof has been permanently damaged.
He`s used to being handled by now so I`ll give it a try; cant do any harm thanks

snowman707

mineral mix containing Zinc often helps in cases like this

planet.melvin

christies direct sell a spray for this. apparantley its great stuff for foot rot

dvet

You'll have to try something else I'd say, if he's very lame he probably won't put on half as much condition as normal. Try footbathing, you can mix in lincospec or just use a zinc footbath, and keep him on soft dry ground/straw for the next while as well. The more confortable you can make him the better he'll do. Watch for withdrawal issues too if you decide to factory him soon.

Has he been pared recently by a foot parer/the vet?

whelan1

have you tried tylan? or a poultice on his foot

LostCovey

whelan1 wrote: »

have you tried tylan? or a poultice on his foot

To the OP,

Please remember that all of this well-intended and potentially very useful advice is based on your initial post where you said your animal had "footrot".

Is it likely that footrot is any part of its current problem, or is it long gone, and are you now dealing with something else entirely?

If this animals leg swelled from the foot to the knee in the first 24 hours, it does not sound like any footrot I have seen.

I am open to correction on this.


LostCovey

Shauny2010

The vet confirmed it as Footrot, the knee did start to swell and felt Hot to touch. but not after 24 hours it was within a week though
The Vet didn't do much more only gave him a few injections and left me a bottle of antibiotics for him.
He never suggested putting a poultice on his foot or using a footbath

Ive started bathing his foot in Hot water and salt solution and Ive noticed an improvement. I don't have any Minerals with Zinc to put in but I must get a few bags of pre calfer minerals, should do the job.

As for the Vet ........ I should n`t have to be posting around for info like this

dvet

Shauny2010 wrote: »

The vet confirmed it as Footrot, the knee did start to swell and felt Hot to touch. but not after 24 hours it was within a week though
The Vet didn't do much more only gave him a few injections and left me a bottle of antibiotics for him.
He never suggested putting a poultice on his foot or using a footbath

Ive started bathing his foot in Hot water and salt solution and Ive noticed an improvement. I don't have any Minerals with Zinc to put in but I must get a few bags of pre calfer minerals, should do the job.

As for the Vet ........ I should n`t have to be posting around for info like this

Didn't see the bit about the whole leg swelling, that sounds more like an infection that travelled up the leg, but anyway, if it's gone now & he's responding a bit to the footbathing you might as well keep at that.

The best things to add to footbaths are either antibiotics e.g. lincocin, formalin (dilute to 5% concentration), or zinc/copper (2.5 to 5% concentration).

Sounds like you'll be aiming for the copper route if you're using the pre calver minerals, see if you can work out from the side of the bag how much would amount to 5% copper. Be careful about letting the water run off into streams etc afterwards, it's toxic - into the slurry tank is the best place to dump it. Whatever you put in, it will only work if his foot is clean first, otherwise you're wasting his time. So clean, dry bedding will help out here. Keep up the footbathing for a few days at least.

Poulticing only works for abscesses that haven't broken out, won't do much for true foot rot.

A topical spray like alamycin might help if you have it lying around - put it on after the footbath.

It'd also be worth getting the foot pared, it'll help clean out the rotten hoof and let the minerals/spray work better.

As for the vet... did he know the animal was still lame/you were unhappy? If he didn't, he might have thought the antibiotics worked fine and left it at that. Most farmers won't footbath for just 1 animal anyway. But if you told him you were unhappy with how the animal turned out, and didn't give you any more advice, then you're right to have some grief with him.

Edit: Found a link to some footbath info/calculations: http://nyschap.vet.cornell.edu/module/foothealth/section1/zinpro%20foot%20bath.pdf