Care for the Lame
If your bull, cows, or calves start to limp, take a good look sooner rather than later.
By Ellen H. Brisendine
Is your bull limping? Are the cows or calves in your herd getting around well enough, but favoring a leg?
Guy Ellis, DVM, Merck Animal Health, says it is a good idea to treat cattle lameness as soon as you notice the limp. Waiting to see if the bull, cow, or calf will heal may allow the problem to worsen and cost you a valuable asset.
“Any abnormal gait is a lameness. It may be a minor lameness, or it may be severe enough that the animal is carrying that leg. Lameness issues in the cow-calf operation are usually quite a bit different than the lameness issues in cattle that are penned, on feed, or confined. So, the problem to consider when you see lame cows, bulls, or even baby calves out on pasture will probably be injuries,” he says.
Injuries can range from a problem in the hip or stifle region of the animal, or they could have a nail in their foot.
“But I call a lame animal anything that has an abnormal gait,” he says.
Injuries, wet pasture conditions, foot rot
“Many times, bull injuries are associated with breeding,” Ellis says. “When bulls are active during the breeding season and are fighting other bulls, we see a lot of lameness. Many of those issues can be serious, especially if the injury is in the stifle or hip area,” Ellis says.
Stifle and hip injuries in bulls can be difficult to manage and heal.
“With cows, many lameness issues are also caused by injuries, but they can be associated with an infection like foot rot. In wet times of year when these cows are moving around in mud or in wet country, they may get some small scratches or puncture wounds near their feet. Likewise, when their feet are wet all the time, they may get an infection between their toes, which sets up a condition called foot rot.”
Ellis says foot rot in cattle is serious but treatable if caught early enough. “Get the lame animal in the chute and look at the feet up close,” he says. “If the rancher waits too long and the lameness is caused by an infection, that infection can move up the limb and get into the bone. Once it does that, it’s very difficult to treat,” he says.
Cases of foot rot can be treated by cleaning the foot, moving the cattle to dry ground and administering the right antibiotics at the right time, he says.
In other cases of lameness, “It is not uncommon to see a cow, or a bull, or even a calf come in with wire that has wrapped around the leg, broken off or become embedded in the skin. Cattle can also step on nails and other sharp objects. They will step on everything. That is why it is important to not let a limping animal go too long without getting that animal in the chute, picking that foot up and examining it closely. If a cow has a nail in the bottom of her foot and you wait too long, you can just imagine the issues that may cause.”
Ellis says foot injuries are fairly uncommon in calves as compared to cows, but sometimes older, weaned calves do contract foot rot. If they are in wet conditions, or “standing around a hay bale after a rain, in mucky conditions, their feet get tender and soft. The incidence of a foot puncture or laceration setting up an infection is higher,” he says.
Treating the lame animal
Treatment and isolation of the injured breeding animal depends on the severity of the injury, Ellis says. “You definitely want to get that bull away from the other bulls and cows to prevent any further injury. An early diagnosis of the injury is critical in order to determine if the bull can be treated and treated effectively.”
Ellis says many lameness-causing injuries are treatable. “We take X-rays of feet and legs of cattle all the time. If we are worried that a cow with an infected foot might have an infection in her bone, then we can X-ray that foot. If there is infection in a lower extremity or in the tip of the toe, we can actually perform minor surgical procedures to correct some of those conditions. There are things we can do, and diagnostics that can be done, to help prevent and treat a lot of these lameness issues,” he says.
“But, if you have the choice of spending a little money and salvaging that cow so she is sound again for a few years versus going downhill and becoming potentially worthless, or needing to be euthanized, veterinary treatment is worth the effort.
“I have treated many cows in my practice,” he says. “You can have an exam done, and take an X-ray, and do a minor procedure, and spend a fraction of her value as a producer in your herd. With the right treatment at the right time, there is a great potential for her to produce for several more years in your herd.”
Thanks to mobile X-ray equipment, it may be easier to get a diagnosis than one might think.
“There is some incredible and convenient equipment these days,” Ellis says, “such as battery-operated wireless X-ray equipment allowing a veterinarian to take needed pictures, send them to your computer, iPad or phone and look at them instantly. In a clinic setting, we have to have stationary units for other species, but then we have mobile X-ray units to go out and focus the machine on the leg of a cow standing in a chute.” He adds that not every veterinarian has this equipment, but it is becoming more widely used.
Caring for the lame
In many cases, lameness in cattle is treatable. The first step to a successful treatment is to take your time observing the cattle for an abnormal gait and performing a closeup exam sooner rather than later.
Monitor the bulls closely during the breeding season. Watch for lameness during wet and mucky conditions.
If at all possible, do not guess about the injury. Restrain the animal in a chute, get a diagnosis and get ahead of a potentially devastating condition.
Start from the bottom of the foot and move up from there, Ellis says. “I’ve been fooled many times as a veterinarian, thinking the problem is in the foot and finding that it is up in the hip or thinking it is in the hip and the animal had a nail in its foot.
Use common sense when caring for a lame animal. “Reduce their need to travel,” Ellis says. “If a lame cow has a calf at her side, then she needs to be put where she does not have to move very far for feed and water. A cow will travel a half-a-mile or so to graze during the day, and the last thing you want her to do is to figure out how she is going to feed herself while she is lame. We need to confine the lame cow, or the lame bull, and make feed and water readily available so they do not have to travel much while they are healing.
“The main point to remember,” Ellis says, “is to not wait too long. Use your veterinarian for a proper diagnosis and treatment. This could save you money in the long run.”
Care for the Lame is excerpted from the September 2018 issue of The Cattleman magazine.