Malaysia Veterinary Forum (Archive)

dairyman · Joined: 11 Jun 2006 Posts: 19

2 days ago my friend let a few of his heifers to feed on brewers grain at lib.
Today 2 of them went down with heavy breathing and off feed. Could it be Acidosis? If so what is the best remedy? T Q.

Dr csh · Joined: 21 Jan 2006 Posts: 427

Dear Dairyman,

The short answer is yes but the remedy part is more tricky. Now, grain overload has so many different ways to affect cows (hence only 2 went down). Without looking at the heifers it is impossible for me to tell the reason for them being down. It could be they are systemically sick, metabolically sick, they could be down due to severe laminitis, or a combination of all (All from grain overload).

At this point (2 days later) the damage is done and many of them will have lingering disease from this episode. If you want, you could try to neutralize the pH of the rumen by giving sodium bicarbonate. Becareful not to give too much as this could be also harmful if you give too much.

Classically there will be an overgrowth of streptococci and people have tried to control this by administering oxytetracycline orally. I'm not sure how much good it will do now since it has been so long and this could destroy the normal bacterial flora needed to digest food. Vitamin B is not a bad idea too.

Check the feet and if the coronary bands are reddened and the heifers respond to hoof testers, I would recommend some antiinflammatory drugs, deep bedding, hoof trimming (I would recommend ALL the heifer's feets looked at anyway) and minimie the distance they have to walk for food and water.

Above all, these cows need supportive care. Make sure they are well hydrated, correct any metabolic abnormalities, deep bedding, food and water, make sure they are not down on the same side too long, etc. If they do not die from the acute phase, supportive care is what will make the difference.

Now, it almost seems to me that these heifers are past the heroic stage where we will go and perform ruminotomy and transfaunation. In those acute mass grain overload cases we have people doing surgeries left right and center and still lose a good number of them. It is not uncommon for cows to develop liver abscesses, lung abscesses, caudal vena cava thrombosis etc. even years after the acidosis insult so don't be too surprised to find them eventually become poor doers, suddenly die or develop massive nasal bleeding.

Of course it is a good chance that most of these heifers will be just fine and have productive career as cows so I'm not advising you to sell them all as you probably already have much invested in them. Good luck