Josie’s Going Bald

 D. E. Larsen, DVM

The sun was bright this morning. It looked like it would be the first dry day we had seen for several weeks this spring.

When I pulled up to the office, I grabbed a bucket of stuff that needed to be washed from the back. All left from last night’s calf-pulling.  

When I entered, Lisa, a trim young mother, was waiting in the reception area. She had a couple of horses that I cared for.

“Lisa is here to talk with you when you have a minute,” Judy said.

“Hi, Lisa!” I said. “Give me a minute to get rid of this bucket and wash up a bit.”

“No rush, Doc,” Lisa said. “I just have a few questions.”

I dropped the bucket in the tub in the back. Then I washed up and went back out front to talk with Lisa.

“Let’s step into an exam room,” I said as I opened the door to the reception area.

When I closed the exam room door, Lisa’s calm demeanor changed to near tears.

“Doc, I got Josie in this morning to clean him up for a ride this weekend,” Lisa blurted out. “Doc, he looks terrible. He is losing large patches of skin on his rump; has scabs and sores all over his back and down his legs. It looks like he is going bald.”

“We have had a pretty wet winter and spring this year,” I said. “I sounds like a case of streptothricosis.”

“Oh, Doctor Larsen, that sounds terrible,” Lisa said.

“Rain rot,” I said. “Very common. He has been out in the rain all winter. He probably never really gets a chance to completely dry out, and he gets a superficial infection in his skin. In most cases, it resolves with more of this stuff we see this morning.”

“Can you look at him today?” Lisa asked. “I would feel so much better. I am afraid to put a saddle on him the way he looks. And I promised the girls I ride with that I would ride with them up Quartzville on Saturday. They are planning to use my trailer.”

“I have some time early this afternoon,” I said. I can stop by your place right after lunch if you have him in his stall.”

“Okay, I will have him in, and thank you, Doc,” Lisa said.

I hurried through the morning surgeries and treatments. There was a full schedule of appointments from ten to noon, but I was able to finish up the morning, and Sandy and I went to the Skyline for lunch.

Lisa was waiting at the barn when I pulled into her place.

“Okay, let’s get a look at Josie,” I said.

When Lisa led him out of his stall, it was obvious that she had not exaggerated his condition. His entire back was matted and had several large patches of hair missing. The matted coat extended down his legs, and his front legs were stocked up a little.

I did a quick exam, which was normal except for his skin condition, and then started carefully looking at the hair coat on his back. When I would come to a loose scab under the matted hair, I would pull it off, leaving another bare skin patch. I could see Lisa flinch every time I did this.

“This is a pretty good case of rain rot, Lisa,” I said. “But, like l said in the office this morning, it looks worse than it is. If you want to ride Josie this weekend, I will put him on some antibiotics; and leave you some medicated shampoo to bathe him. If this dry spell holds for a few days, bathing him daily will be helpful. Just make sure he has a chance to dry after each bath.”

“Do you think he will be okay to ride by Saturday?” Lisa asked.

“After you bathe him a couple of times, this skin will look much better,” I said. “The antibiotics will take care of the infection right away. The thing that you are going to have to make yourself do is to remove any scabs you find when you are bathing him. That will help the skin infection clear up. It will leave a bald patch, but his hair will grow back right away. Not by Saturday, but he will look slick in a few weeks.”

“Dixie told me you were a scab picker,” Lisa said.

“Those scabs just trap the infection against the skin. He is a lot better off with them gone,” I said. “You need to be pretty rough when you give him a bath. Really work the shampoo into his hair coat, either with your fingers or with a brush. Then let the shampoo set for at least ten minutes; fifteen minutes might be better for Josie. Rinse him well, towel dry, and then let him out in the sun. You will notice that he will feel better right away.”

***

Lisa stopped by the office on Friday morning. She was all smiles.

“Doc, I could just hug you,” Lisa said. “Josie looks so much better, and he feels better too. His hair coat is even looking a little like his slick summer coat. Those bald patches are still there, but I can see that some new hair is starting to grow back already. I am out of his shampoo. Do you think I need some more?”

“If he looks like he has a summer coat, you don’t need any more shampoo,” I said. “When you go riding in the morning, you will be surprised at how the other horses look. If they haven’t lived in a barn this winter, they will all look just like Josie looked the other day.”

“Well, Josie isn’t going to get in that condition again,” Lisa said. “I feel terrible for letting it happen. I guess I will have to blanket him in the future.”

“Blankets will help, but just remember, horses survived just fine for many centuries without being blanketed,” I said. “You can control that rain rot with a good brushing every few days and making sure that he has a chance to dry out completely.”

As I predicted, Josie was the best-groomed horse in Lisa’s group on Saturday. And Lisa enjoyed her status as she explained to the other girls in the group how they should manage their horse’s hair coats after the wet winter and spring.

Photo by Loli de Elia on Pexels.

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http://bluebirdofbitterness.com/2023/06/20/thanks-a-latte/

Salmonella Infection in Calves

 D. E. Larsen, DVM

Larry was waiting at the barn when I pulled off Old Holley Road. I parked in front of the barn, stepped out of the trunk, and shook Larry’s hand.

“What do you have going on today, Larry?” I asked as I opened the back of the truck.

“Doc, I have been buying all the bull calves from a dairy over by Shedd,” Larry said. “I was up to twenty-four of them the first of the week. I got them for a good price, and I was figuring I would make a bundle on them. Then, this week, I have lost six calves. Two of them just this morning. I guess I want to know what’s going on with them.”

“Let’s look at what you have set up before I get anything out of the truck,” I said.

We walked through the barn door, and Larry had the two dead calves laid out in the straw by the door. They were thin, skinny would be a better description, and their rear ends were soiled from diarrhea.

“When this started, I just thought it was a case of scours,” Larry said. “So I picked up these scour pills from the feed store. But they haven’t helped at all.”

Larry handed me a package of scour pills, Aureomycin, a tetracycline pill. Looking at the calves in the pen, they were all thin, and most of them were showing some signs of diarrhea. They were well bedded in straw, but it looked like new straw was laid down over older straw when it became soiled.

“If you have lost six calves this week, you need to load these two dead calves up and take them over to the diagnostic lab at Oregon State,” I said. “This is not just a simple case of scours.”

“I figured that out when two of them were dead this morning,” Larry said. “Do you think these pills are okay?”

“No, I don’t use tetracycline in nursing calves,” I said. “Some of the drug might be bound up with the calcium in the milk, and you need a stronger antibiotic anyway. I will leave you some trimeth/sulfa until we get the results from the diagnostic lab. I also want you to turn these calves out on pasture, if that is possible. This setup is okay, but when we have a lot of diarrhea, pasture just gives these calves a cleaner environment.”

“I was thinking of turning them out anyway,” Larry said. “The pasture is really starting to grow with the warmer weather. And Doc, could you give me a prescription for those pills from the pharmacy. I need to save as much as possible with this many calves.”

“Okay, and call if you see any calves not eating or with watery diarrhea,” I said. “They will need some fluids, and if we start early, we can use oral fluids. Those are a lot cheaper than giving IV fluids.”

“Will the lab know I’m coming?” Larry asked.

“Yes, I will call over there and try to build a fire under them so they will put these calves at the head of the line,” I said. “We will need to get early results if we can.”

Larry was loading the dead calves into the back of his pickup as I pulled out of the driveway. I called Dr. Snyder at the diagnostic lab when I returned to the office.

“Stan, I am sending a client over this morning with a couple of dead calves,” I said. “He has a bunch of calves that he gets from a dairy, and he has lost six out of twenty-four calves this week. I guess I’m asking for some special treatment if that is possible.”

“We see some nasty bugs in some of the dairies around the valley here,” Dr. Snyder said. “I will take the case when he gets here. We will have the gross necropsies done this afternoon. But, as you know, any culture will take a day or two.”

The initial results of the necropsy had Dr. Snyder thinking we were dealing with one of the virus diseases, probably bovine virus diarrhea, but the following morning he was on the phone again.

“Dave, the initial culture results look like we are dealing with a Salmonella bacteria,” Dr. Snyder said. “That’s really preliminary, and it will take another day to put an accurate name on the bug, but we will start a sensitivity test right away, so you should have those results in the morning. You need to caution Larry about this bug. It is definitely zoonotic. If any of his kids have been working with these calves or anyone with any immune suppression, they should be checked by a doctor if they have any problems.”

“Okay, I was going to stop by his place this afternoon anyway,” I said. “Thanks for the special attention in this case. I know you guys are busy over there most of the time.”

When I stopped at Larry’s place, he seemed all smiles. 

“These calves are looking better already with that new antibiotic,” Larry said. “Most of the stools I see are looking almost normal.”

“Initially, Dr. Snyder thought we had some virus problems, but this morning it looks like they have a positive culture for salmonella,” I said. “If the stools are looking better, I maybe made a lucky guess on the antibiotic. We also need to worry about any infection in you or your family. Salmonella bacteria is a serious infection, and looking at your dead calves, it can be life-threatening. It can definitely cause disease in people.”

“My son has had some diarrhea the last couple of days,” Larry said. “We didn’t worry much about it. It’s just one of those things kids have at times.”

“This is nothing to play around with, Larry,” I said. “You need to have him checked by your doctor. I can send him the culture results tomorrow when I get the report, but you should get your son to the doctor today.”

When the culture results came in, they listed a heavy growth for Salmonella species, type D, cultured from the lungs of both calves. The sensitivity showed resistance to many antibiotics. Just by the luck of the draw, the bug was sensitive to trimeth/sulfa.

The remaining calves continued to improve and thrived on the pasture. When I stopped for a quick look the following week, you couldn’t tell they had ever had a problem.

Larry’s son went to the doctor and was started on antibiotics. I never heard any results, but the two of them were in later in the summer talking about fishing the canyons of the upper Santiam River, so I would guess his problems resolved just fine.

Photo by Evgen Slavin on Unsplash.