7 Common Cattle Diseases Your Cattle Might Suffer from

Raising cattle in a farm might be interesting. You can get lots of things by raising cattle, such as meat and milk. Besides, grassy land might be another point of interest you can have by raising cattle.

If you plan to raise cattle in a farm, then you can enrich your knowledge by learning about the thing you should know before starting a cattle farm. By doing so, you can manage your farm well. Another issue of raising cattle in a farm is maintaining their health.

Maintaining cattle’s health might not be simple, as you will need lots of strategies, such as good breeding, feeding, housing, vaccination, grass management and many more. For the feeding, you can see some great guides to feed cattle during winter time. You might find some incredible ideas there.

Poor management of cattle in the farm might lead to the presence of some diseases. This part might be the challenge for you who are the beginner of cattle farm owner. Here are the 7 most common diseases that cattle might suffer from.

• Blue Tongue

Blue tongue is a common problem in cattle’s respiratory system. Diseases related to respiratory system usually have some symptoms such as coughing, nasal and eye discharge, rapid shallow breathing and salivation as well.

Blue tongue has some symptoms such as fever, widespread hemorrhages of the nasal and oral tissue, too much salivation and nasal discharge. If the case is more acute and severe, the cattle might experience swollen lips and tongue and extend to the lower jaw. Blue tongue is also one of the causes of goat pregnancy loss. This must be a very serious disease!

• Bovine Anaemia – Theileria

This is a common disease that attacks the reproductive system. It is caused by intracellular blood parasites that belong to the Theileria groups, such as bush ticks. This type of ticks is attached to some parts of the cattle’s body, such as around the tail, on the udder, inside the legs, in the ears and sometimes on the neck and face.

This disease is popular with the name “bovine anaemia”. There are some symptoms of this disease, such as lethargy, lack of appetite and weakness. Pregnant cows are mostly affected by this disease as they are the ones that have the highest death rate. You can see other cattle diseases that can cause weight loss.

If your cattle experience loss in appetite, you can follow the tips on how to increase appetite in cattle.

• Bloating

Digestive processes commonly produce gas inside the fore stomach. Cattle frequently belch in order to bring out this gas and relieve pressure on their stomach.

Bloating happens when the gas inside the stomach arises because of two common reasons, blocking along the esophagus or gullet or the presence of rapid fermentation that disables the cattle to belch.

• Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD)

Besides blue tongue, BVD is another common disease that attacks the cattle’s respiratory and reproductive system as well. BVD is caused by the bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV).

This type of virus is transmitted through several ways, such as congenital infection of the fetus or after birth. This infection can lead to resorption, stillbirth or abortion.

The cattle suffering from BVD might experience some symptoms, such as lack of coordination of muscles movement, tremors, failure in nursing, wide stance and even death.

There are other infections called transient infections that include reproductive disorders, decreased milk production, calf pneumonia and diarrhea. The only prevention of this disease is by doing vaccination.

• Cold Cow Syndrome

This is an unusual disease which cause is unknown. Cold cow syndrome commonly appears during the time when the lactating cows grazing ryegrass pastures. Surprisingly, this disease is able to affect 80 percent of a group of cows.

High level of soluble carbohydrates might be the common cause of this disease but compound in plants and mycotoxins are also possible. Unlike its name, this disease doesn’t have any relation with weather conditions.

The cattle that experience cold cow syndrome will likely experience some symptoms, such as wobbling or falling over, feel cold to the touch but has normal temperature, drop on the milk production.

• Lice

This is a common disease affected almost all animals, including cattle. Despite its small size, the effect of this small animal may be dangerous. There are two types of lice attacking cattle: sucking and biting lice.

The sucking lice is clearly sucking blood and commonly attacking the head and neck of the cattle. This kind of lice can possibly cause anaemia.

Biting lice is commonly larger than the sucking lice. They feed on skin debris, blood and scabs. Though biting lice sounds harmless than sucking lice, but it causes the most severe irritation. This type of lice is commonly found on the back, shoulder and rump areas.

Don’t worry, here are the the natural remedies to get rid of lice in cattle. You can consider using these remedies as they are natural and harmless for your cattle.

• Foot-and-mouth

This is known as the high contagious disease of cattle. It also possibly affects sheep, goats, deer and other farm animals. Foot-and-mouth disease is caused by seven types of virus, in which each producing the same symptoms.

The spread of this virus is through the air, especially during favorable weather conditions, this virus can be spread by long distance. Besides, this virus can spread through contact with the food stuffs or contaminated things by the infected ones.

Fever, blister, weight loss and drop in milk production are the symptoms of this disease. Vaccination can be the way of reducing the spread of this disease.