The Blind Calf Story
This happened last month. I thought it was an interesting case.
Wed Aug 15th 2007 8:30 AM: Went out and brought new heifer calf and cow in from field. Not too sure how old calf was; umbilical cord sort of dried up, but calf still seemed damp. Left her with cow all morning ‘til maybe early afternoon, then separated them. Beautiful, normal calf.
6 PM Fed calf bottle. She slugged back the whole thing.
Thurs Aug 16th5:15 AM (approx) Calf comatose. Or as near as I could tell. She was on her side, non-responsive, drooling, head on ground, eyes closed or just barely opened. I tried to feed her bottle but she only swallowed convulsively once or twice, then milk just drained from her mouth.
5:30 AM. Husband went out and looked at her. Drug her out of pen and out of the way to be taken to boneyard later after chores were all done. She was barely breathing and as I said, totally non-responsive.This was a real grief as the cow she came from is a great milker and to get a heifer from her was a joy. But...
12 noon on Thurs. I came home from town and was astonished to see her sitting up looking around.
7 PM. She was very weak, but stood up and drank her whole bottle.
By the next day: She is blind! It is so weird. The calf is totally blind. She seems strong enough, gets up, slurps down her whole bottle, but her eyes are white, clouded over like. (see photo)
For the next two weeks she is blind and we don't bother to put her in a pen. She continues to gain strength and wanders around now, but stays pretty close to the other calves. She does get up and come bumbling toward me when she hears me out feeding them. It is funny to watch her; she walks really cautiously with her head stretched out, when she bumps into something she turns and goes another direction; kind of like one of those windup toys that turn when they hit a wall.
Fast forward to Sept. She has regained her sight and except for a strange opacity about her pupils you can't tell her from the other calves.
My husband thinks it was a fever that made her blind. But it was weird.
Comments
a pretty calf ! ;)
She was actually born sighted, I believe. At least we didn't notice anything out of the ordinary like you described. It, your case, sounds really strange-that the eyes are an opaque green.
Good luck. Let me know what happens.
Rebecca
Could rejection be instint of cow that calf is impaired?
Thank you Blog/Boggers Fred
Anony-We didn't sequester the calf, but we didn't let her run the open pasture either. She just ambled around the grounds on her own. We had to keep an eye on her to keep her out of trouble, but she did pretty well on her own. She learned to turn and go the other way when she ran into something. She'd hear me coming with the bottle and would come toward me by sound. I'd have been afraid to let her into any enclosure with ponds or such.
Also, I seen that you are located in Missouri? I am too! We are just a little west of St. Louis in Pacifc. Where are you located? Do you sell raw milk?
Thanks,
Julia
I don't know if the eye prob could be pink eye. I don't know enough about p.e to be able to tell.
Our particular calf continues to appear well except for what appear to be cararacts on her eyes, though she seems to see well enough.
We are located in Dallas County; east of Buffalo. We don't sell raw milk due to the liability issue.
Thanks for visiting. I like reading other people's stories.
We went out today and got it up...one eys is completely milky, and the other looks like coffee with cream. It definitely can't see so we have taken it away from it's mother (it's too wild to have in pens) and we are now going to raise it on a bottle if we can get it to suck. I would love to think that it will see down the road, but I really don't think it's going to happen. I'll let you know as grows.
Looking at it's eyes one looks semi normal the other is white and looks hollow to the white but isn't open IOW the pupil area looks like it's gone and replaced by clear fluid.
It is having trouble learning to eat anything but a bottle, I have to force solid food on it.
It has been two weeks and a half since I started.
Solid food is tighening it's stools ,I was afraid it would never quit scouring.
He's black and blind so we named him Ray Charles.
Your words are encouraging
Could this be caused by inbreeding?
BTW - don't take my word as gospel - I'm just a student. Many of you described different eye colours/problems so there could be mulitple bacteria/viral etc agents being the underlying cause. :)
Handling every newborn, I got to see one or two every year born blind. I do not recall one that did not come out of it in a few days or week. The veterinarian said, 5 cc of vitamin A, intramuscular and let them go. My optometrist said, babies are sometimes born without the full development of the nerves to the eyes, so I took it that this was the case.
This past March, however, something unreal happened in my herd. Scores of 6 to 12 month calves went blind, had tremors, and many died. The cows also had inc-ordination, many, many aborted their fetuses, and many died. The eye problems were not as great with the cows as the calves. Some yearling's died and had eye problems.
A report came back from the rendering plant that they found endosulfan, a pestcide used on crops, including sweet corn. We lost 10 bulls, numerous cows and calves, and a yet unknown number of abortions. 50 yearlings are blind, 2 or 3 cows, and a goodly number have lost the sight of one eye. Now I find newborn calves are blind with normal looking eyes, at least normal looking to me, I am pastel color blind.
It is late, I may write more in the next couple days about how to deal with the blind animals. For now let me say they get along quite well, surprisingly well. A idividual blind amimal will thrive comparably to other cattle if they are in a small enclosure. They will get to the feed and water so easily that an outsider would not realize that they are in fact, blind. More later.
We were blessed with "Stevie" 7 years ago and she has been the best mama cow ever!
She was born blind and her first few days were tough for her but she is a trooper. I knew when she was going to have her first calf because she, for the first time ever, challanged another cow over a pile of cubes. I looked at my husband and said "she's going to have a calf and she knows she needs extra protien in those cubes" Sure enough a few months later she delivered a beautiful bouncing baby boy!
I named her Stevie because she reminds me of Stevie Wonder by the way she bobs her head and she is a black angus:>))
Trust me if you have a blind calf they will do fine but please don't take them to the sale barn.
My husband called me this AM to tell me Stevie has just had her 4th calf and both are doing fine.
but she shows no signs of eye problems, her eys are clear and normal looking , so will wait and see what comes