Dead Calf

When I checked cows yesterday PM had a 5 year old cow up bawling by the barn, went looking and found 8 week old heifer calf dead. No signs of any trauma or struggle still warm, just laying there dead, everything looked ok, nice healthy 250-300# heifer. Eyes, nose, gums looked good but when I put her in the loader bucket there was blood coming out of her rectum not a little but not a lot. The rest of the cows and calves look fine.
My guess is hardware, any other ideas?
Thanks for any help.

Acute cociodosis is my guess.

Do you have any trouble with coccidiosis (sp) in your area? They have bloody diarrhea with that, but usually look skinny and unthrifty, and more than one will get it. Bovatec in the mineral will help that.
Is it possible she got stepped on in a way that didn't break any bones, only left internal injuries?
Another possibility is some kind of birth defect such as an aneurism or other weakness that just showed itself? I had a calf die at about that age once while the vet was treating it. It literally died in her hands. She did an autopsy and found out it was born with a very weak heart and had a heart attack right then.
White muscle disease will take a perfect looking calf quickly but I don't know why it would put blood out the back end. Vitamin E-Selenium is the cure for that and you would need to needle the rest of your calves.
Two other possibilities that kill quickly are blackleg and anthrax. Anthrax only happens in certain areas such as Saskatchewan and is very scary stuff that I know nothing about. I think it is too early in the season for blackleg, though I could be wrong. If you have blackleg you will need to vaccinate the rest of your calves with Tazvax or Covexin immediately.

Without having a vet do a post-mortem exam you may never know, and even then it may be a mystery. One thing that will knock down a young calf like that could be one of the Clostridial diseases. There is a strain of it (Type A, I think, but types C and D also affect cattle) that will overtake their digestive system and cause a very quick death (rapid bloat caused by an explosion in gut bacteria numbers following a large intake of milk). A 7-way vaccination can prevent this particular disease; additionally, we have had good results giving a Type A toxoid vaccination to the cows prior to calving (with the idea that the immunity will pass to the calf through collostrum and prevent the bloat from occurring). That is just one of many possibilities. I will add that some blood out the back is pretty normal, as the tissues weep a little following death. But don't let an internet forum replace your vet. I hope you can figure it out.
Best of Luck,
Lon

Short of necropsy its a shot in the dark. Coccidiosis is an option but so is everything from a latent navel cord infections (lost one last year to that, at 21 days of age), plant toxins or molds, and a bunch of other stuff.

Cocidiosis isn't a problem in this area and its a closed heard. Nearest cattle are 2-3 miles away and they're mine too.
Thanks anyway.

Could be almost anything. I had one die like that last summer, about this time, remember if there is blood coming from back end, scavengers like coons, foxes, buzzards all nip at the soft tissue there, first or second in the pecking order. Danm buzzards plucked one eye out of the momma cow protecting the corpse, too.

I"d go with getting stepped on too.

Probably a clostridium infection of some sort.

Most likely "overeating" disease. It"s a gastrointestinal infection that occurs at 8-12 weeks when the calves are starting to develp their rumen. It"s caused by c. perfringens C&D. They often have a frothy foam aroun their mouths before they go down. An injection of C&D Antitoxin can save the calf IF you catch it in time. All the clostridium caused diseases are very deady and kill quickly and you should vaccinate with an 8 Way nnalert (Vison 8, etc)several times a year. We vacinate our calves with 8 Way at birth and every time we work them on the advice of our vet. At about $0.60 per shot it"s cheap insurance for a calf that will be worth $900-1000 if you can get him to weaning alive.

doesn't cost you anything to cut it open and look inside. Most anyone can tell where something doesn't look quite right. I would go with a fast acting pneumonia.

Ive seen calves stand out in the hot sun.They dont seem to go to shade.They get sun stroke. Vet told me to get to a water hose and soak them.Anything can happen with cattle.

Had one a few years ago that died suddenly. Took it in and lab said twisted intestines. It is a guess unless you have it checked and even then it still could be. I would watch the others close.

Once when I was a teenager, we had a calf die unexpectedly. My Dad and I wanted to know why, so we cut the calf open to see if we could come up with a reason. It was obvious that something had gone wrong with the calf"s intestine, and when we cut open the area that looked blocked, we found a piece of plastic wrap the calf apparently ate.

I think the Vet wanted a couple of hundred dollars to do the autopsy on the calf, and Dad didn"t think it was worth that much. So we did it.

If I was going to do a post on ANY dead animal today, I would be a whole lot more careful. We didn"t even use gloves. We were very lucky that the calf had not died of something that WE might have caught. Scares me to think about it!

We had another small calf die onetime that had been stepped on, but that was pretty obvious.

Sorry you lost your calf. A Vet could probably tell you why it died, but I doubt that they would only charge $200, since that was probably 45 years ago. Good luck!