Copper

blue5000

A couple of my oldest calves, 6 weeks old, are showing signs of copper defeciency. What's the best way to treat them? I think they are too young for a bolus. They are sucklers. Any ideas, thanks.

5live

Sheep copper boluses? 4 or 5 g of copper iirc

bob charles

blue5000 wrote: »

A couple of my oldest calves, 6 weeks old, are showing signs of copper defeciency. What's the best way to treat them? I think they are too young for a bolus. They are sucklers. Any ideas, thanks.

harly showing it that young, If it is Cu deficiency that young surely the problem is with the cow?? give her a few bolus?

blue5000

Yes bob, it could be in the cow too, cows usually get a bolus before bulling starts, and still has to be done. Our land is high in molybdenum and this locks up copper. Thanks 5live, never thought of a sheep bolus.

blue5000

I'm going to try post up a photo of one of the calves. He's an angus bull out of a lim x fr cow. I think he should be jet black.

Rovi

[MOD]
Some posts containing digs at another member deleted.
Let's leave that sort of thing out of it, huh?
[/MOD]

greysides

Calves are fine, just 'coating'.

Tipp Man

blue5000 wrote: »

I'm going to try post up a photo of one of the calves. He's an angus bull out of a lim x fr cow. I think he should be jet black.

Unless there was a bit of something other than Fr in the original cow, Swiss Brown or Norwegian Red or something??

Fine calf, how old is he? Will you bring him to beef?

whelan1

they look fine to me, quite similar to our angus, if worried maybe leave a few mineral buckets in the field, some of our calves lick the cows buckets, but if you are worried get some bloods done....

pakalasa

When the cow is a fine dark colour like that, I wouldn't be concerned about the calf either.

Bodacious

I had a bb calf last year that I just didn't like the look of in terms of coat/thrive... I got few of them all sure small boluses for sheep/ calves ... And she turned inside out

blue5000

Tipp Man wrote: »

Unless there was a bit of something other than Fr in the original cow, Swiss Brown or Norwegian Red or something??

Fine calf, how old is he? Will you bring him to beef?

No, cow is straight fr x lim.

Calf was born early March

Hopefully, but depends on finances. Thinking of keeping the best 12 AA and aubrac bull calves for beef at about 16 months. I reckon the slow learners in the mart won't know what an aubrac is:( All they want is char or red lim.

I'm tempted to use a sheep bolus on all the odd numbered calves to see if there is any difference, I've seen this lad licking the Mg bucket. Would love to have a scales though.

Tipp Man

blue5000 wrote: »

No, cow is straight fr x lim.

Calf was born early March

Hopefully, but depends on finances. Thinking of keeping the best 12 AA and aubrac bull calves for beef at about 16 months. I reckon the slow learners in the mart won't know what an aubrac is:( All they want is char or red lim.

I'm tempted to use a sheep bolus on all the odd numbered calves to see if there is any difference, I've seen this lad licking the Mg bucket. Would love to have a scales though.

Yeah i'm tending to agree with you then - for an animal that should have an expected black coat that is very brown alright

I'd be inclined to give him something for it

LostCovey

Part of the trouble is that copper deficiency severe enough to change coat colour seems to be incredibly rare nowadays, you never see it in the mart anyway - i live in an area where we used to see it years ago, but theres so much copper in everything (meal, minerals) as well as all of the staright copper supplementation.

If a 6-week-old calf was copper deficient enough to be unable to produce pigment, would it be thriving like that one?

And surely if a 6 week old calf was that severely deficient, it would mean his mother was deficient too (where else has a calf got anything by way of nourishment or minerals at that age?).

And her coat colour is fine, and she is in great condition.

I am with greysides, that's just a black calf moulting the baby coat.

If anyone is from the generation who has never seen 'real' copper deficient coat colour with real de-pigmentation - look at the black Dexter calf in this link! These were not uncommon in the west. Not too long agao, but definitely pre-1990.

http://www.dexters4u.com/2012/04/copper-deficiency/

BTW If I was the person the earlier digs were at, I wouldn't want to let my detractors down by keeping my nose out of this!!

LostCovey

PS, sorry to labour the point but with real copper deficiency the "spectacles" are white or pale like that "black Dexter", not black spectacles, like in Blue5000's calf.

LC

greysides

I worked on a farm that bought in HRX bull calves, milk fed them and put them to grass weaned.

90% went out as red-whiteheads, 90% came in as black whiteheads.

pakalasa

Rovi wrote: »

[MOD]
Some posts containing digs at another member deleted.
Let's leave that sort of thing out of it, huh?
[/MOD]

Ah come on, nobody was having a dig at LC. In fact, I think most would agree wholeheartedly with what he says about the willy-nilly use of farm drugs.

Rovi

pakalasa wrote: »

Ah come on, nobody was having a dig at LC. In fact, I think most would agree wholeheartedly with what he says about the willy-nilly use of farm drugs.

[MOD]
In isolation and on the face of it, the posts I deleted could certainly be read as a bit of mild ribbing, but the context at the time was that there was more 'heated' discourse on the subject going on in a couple of other threads, and I didn't want that spilling into this one.

I absolutely agree that the willy-nilly use of veterinary medicines, and more specifically to here, what appears to be the 'casual' dispensing of advice on their use, looks VERY bad to the outside observer even if no one ever acts on any of it.

We're (the forum mods) working of nailing together a forum policy on this, so please bear with us for a bit.
[/MOD]

OP: That calf looks pretty good to me, but if you're worried, the only real way to find out for sure is to involve your vet.

You say the mother is Lim x Fr, so there's red + black & white in his genes too; if he was purebred AA, I'd be more concerned about his colouring.

LostCovey

Rovi wrote: »

[MOD]
In isolation and on the face of it, the posts I deleted could certainly be read as a bit of mild ribbing, but the context at the time was that there was more 'heated' discourse on the subject going on in a couple of other threads, and I didn't want that spilling into this one.

I absolutely agree that the willy-nilly use of veterinary medicines, and more specifically to here, what appears to be the 'casual' dispensing of advice on their use, looks VERY bad to the outside observer even if no one ever acts on any of it.

We're (the forum mods) working of nailing together a forum policy on this, so please bear with us for a bit.
[/MOD]

OP: That calf looks pretty good to me, but if you're worried, the only real way to find out for sure is to involve your vet.

You say the mother is Lim x Fr, so there's red + black & white in his genes too; if he was purebred AA, I'd be more concerned about his colouring.

More folklore than science, and not really related to the copper debate: an old man in our village used to say that a calf or a foal will turn out to be whatever colour they are around their eye when they are young (ie a way to tell whether a brown calf will be black or a black foal will be a grey).

PatQfarmer

blue5000 wrote: »

I'm going to try post up a photo of one of the calves. He's an angus bull out of a lim x fr cow. I think he should be jet black.

Calf appears to be thriving and cow is in fantastic shape. Colour is a bit funny alright. If worried, take bloods, that is better than "experimenting" and will probably be cheaper in long run.
Part of my land is high in molybdenum also and I always have a lick in the field. Youngstock always lick it, but some take a while to improve their coats, esp this time of year.

PatQfarmer

Rovi wrote: »

[MOD]
In isolation and on the face of it, the posts I deleted could certainly be read as a bit of mild ribbing, but the context at the time was that there was more 'heated' discourse on the subject going on in a couple of other threads, and I didn't want that spilling into this one.

I absolutely agree that the willy-nilly use of veterinary medicines, and more specifically to here, what appears to be the 'casual' dispensing of advice on their use, looks VERY bad to the outside observer even if no one ever acts on any of it.

We're (the forum mods) working of nailing together a forum policy on this, so please bear with us for a bit.
[/MOD]

Well I missed all that kerfuffle...but LC is usually sensible in approach to any ailment.
We are not Vets(well most of us) and all the experience in the world that we have amassed dealing with our own animals does not mean that we can give a "cure" to something we have not seen, esp when we are only relying on a typed description for evaluation.
That said, other peoples experience can be a great teacher, but must be taken sensibly.
I've confused myself now, but I hope you know what I mean:D

greysides

I absolutely agree that the willy-nilly use of veterinary medicines, and more specifically to here, what appears to be the 'casual' dispensing of advice on their use, looks VERY bad to the outside observer even if no one ever acts on any of it.

The use of antibiotics is all tied up in rules about dispensing whether we agree to them or not. The current situation is that an animal has to be seen and diagnosed by a vet before antibiotics are handed out or prescribed. The amount handed out is supposed to be just enough for that animal.
So, theoretically, there shouldn't be stockpiles of antibiotics on farms waiting to be used.
Consequently, no matter what advice is given online there is a control mechanism already in place.
Anyone seeking antibiotics from their vet is going to explain the situation to them anyway and would be foolish to disregard the vets advice in favour of online advice.

Antibiotics that work in one part of the country for a particular problem can be much less effective elsewhere. So local experience is best.
Any one happily using a certain brand mastitis tubes probably knows a neighbour they are no good for.

So...............I don't know what a casual observer would think of advice being dispensed here but situation on the ground is more controlled than they might percieve.

However..........we all know that the perception is much more important/valid than the reality. That is the lesson we have learnt over the past two decades of form-filling.

blue5000

Well lads went with 5live's advice and gave all the odd numbered calves a 6g copper bolus today. I don't know how much a blood test would be, but boluses were 55cent each, will post another couple of pics in 6 weeks.

FarmerJoe123

Anyone on here ever had a calf /weanling with too much copper in their system??

Had a weanling wasting away over the christmas, seperated him and got the vet to do bloods and the only thing that came back was that he had twice the safe amount of copper in his system, the vet said all we could do was stop giving him beef nuts (recommended hogget finisher instead), we did, and the improvement the last few weeks is astounding!
never in my life came accross such a thing, and neither has anyone else I've talked to!

blue5000

blue5000 wrote: »

No, cow is straight fr x lim.

Calf was born early March

Hopefully, but depends on finances. Thinking of keeping the best 12 AA and aubrac bull calves for beef at about 16 months. I reckon the slow learners in the mart won't know what an aubrac is:( All they want is char or red lim.

I'm tempted to use a sheep bolus on all the odd numbered calves to see if there is any difference, I've seen this lad licking the Mg bucket. Would love to have a scales though.

Sorry to resurrect an old thread. Weighed the weanlings. The odd numbered bulls who got two 6g copper boluses averaged 1.06 kg ADG since birth.

The even numbered bulls who got 1 copper bolus about two months later (when the difference was obvious in the coats) than the odd ones got their first one averaged 0.96 kg /day.

Their was a difference with the heifers too but it is not as big. I think I'll be doing this one again in 2013.

greysides

Well done, very scientific approach.