Dehydration in a milk cow help

[renee o'neill]

Bessie had her calf Feb.1st no problems.Today she was off her grain at night and looked off.I took her temp.101.8 saw her drink and nibble hay.Her eyes look wrong to my almost sunken.Not drasticly but showing.I called the vet and got electrolytes to add to her water and gave her a tube of calcium gel plus selenium around 6 pm.I started hand milking her 1x a day 3 days ago,her calf is still w/ her.I only take about 3/4 of a gallon.She is a cross looks like holstein angus .She is the one who broke her leg last year,healed great.Any ideas on what would cause this?

[Eunice]

If she isn't eating, she could get ketosis, which is when a cow (or person or goat) is in a negative energy state. Smell her breath. A cow with ketosis has sweet smelling breath from the ketones. Many years ago I used propylene glycol in treating my cow. Nutra Drench would be great as it also contains other things. Sorry. I haven't stayed up with the cow end of things recently.

[Up North]

The symptoms described could be caused by mastitis. They could also be caused by intrauterine infection as a result of retained placenta. Or by a developing case of pneumonia, or a host of other maladies.
Either have a vet examine cow or try to determine cause of symptoms.
Continue to monitor body temperature.

[cindy04]

You mention dehydration in the subject line. If you feel that she is not drinking enough I would give her a couple of gallons of warm water with mollasses (about 1 or 2 cups). We give this to our girls when its really cold just to make sure they drink enough.

Good luck

[renee o'neill]

she checked clean for worms,and is now nibbeling on grain today.I did add some probets{sp} and she seems better.I just dont get it.I cant figure out what this is.