# Bovine Papillomatosis



## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

I loaded calves today and took them to the sale. Discovered I’ve a new problem… bovine warts (ears)! It was pretty bad on one of the calves. No idea how I missed it.

I saw one on the Jack, assumed it was a sore from him and the stud horse fighting. I’ve never had this problem here in our livestock, still trying to solve that riddle but have a good idea where it came from.

I spent a couple hours researching it online, already know which vaccine to order. Any other pointers for those who’ve dealt with this malady? :dunno:


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Ugh, looks nasty but not very detrimental from my understanding (which is limited). The last thing a guy needs is another disease to worry about but that one seems pretty harmless as far as they go (self correcting). Reminds me of pink-eye in a way (REALLY sucks to have but in the end everybody is usually O.K). With pink-eye, once they are exposed they are safe for awhile at least :dunno:

They look healthy otherwise, I hope you didn't get completely short changed on the price for something that is ultimately not a real problem. I visited the auction for awhile today and the prices were incredible but still the occasional one was given away (they were pretty terrible though).

ETA; made the mistake of googling, now to satisfy my curiosity, do you have ferns or bracken in their pasture?


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

cowboyhermit said:


> Ugh, looks nasty but not very detrimental... The last thing a guy needs is another disease to worry about ...
> 
> ETA; made the mistake of googling, now to satisfy my curiosity, do you have ferns or bracken in their pasture?


In my life I have never seen this. Down stream neighbor (lifetime) had a dairy. 2 years ago he retired and sold his Holsteins. His son bought him out and brought in beef cattle, just enough time for incubation&#8230; These (4) wart viruses can be spread by biting insects. If hit young enough it can stunt the growth of calves, even choke their upper GI (extreme worst case).

(Last year he brought over a still born illness, cost me 2 calves.)

Major concern&#8230; right conditions it can stunt growth of my calves. Good news&#8230; vaccinations for my young calves is less than $100. I Do Not Want Chemicals But Have No Choice!

Are you listening young preppers? Lots of bad things can happen that you have no control over! Lots of diseases that can lie dormant in the soil for months and years! Black leg can lie dormant for over a decade! Others are air born or insect driven.

Ferns&#8230; I have 3 species in abundance.

Polystichum acrostichoides- christmas fern

Athyrium filix-femina- lady fern

Onoclea sensibilis - sensitive fern

All have problems for livestock that I understand. Do you know something besides the obvious? :dunno:

Thanks much for your input Cowboy... I'm treading water here!


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Cotton said:


> In my life I have never seen this. Down stream neighbor (lifetime) had a dairy. 2 years ago he retired and sold his Holsteins. His son bought him out and brought in beef cattle, just enough time for incubation&#8230; These (4) wart viruses can be spread by biting insects. If hit young enough it can stunt the growth of calves, even choke their upper GI.
> 
> (Last year he brought over a still born illness, cost me 2 calves.)
> 
> ...


I just saw a lot of links between ferns and the virus, they seem to be just showing a compounding effect with some strains of the virus but things like that always makes me wonder.

From what I have seen, I think there is a decent chance that the strain that calf has is unlikely to cause the severe symptoms mentioned.

Still, it seems that this might be an example of a vaccine that is worth it in your situation, especially if the ferns might compound the situation. It looks like it is generally a problem with the virus not fully stimulating an immune response at first. When the immune system is finally triggered, the warts typically reversed. I would imagine there could be the same problems with colostrum/birth immunity, unless the mother had a full on case it might not be passed on. So a good vaccine might be the way to go, like with tetanus in a way, although in that case immunity is hard to attain for the opposite reasons (enough for immunity is enough to die).


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

Thanks again cowboy. This malady is not that big of a deal. It’s just frustrating. For decades my dad’s and neighbors herds remained disease free for the most part. My neighbor’s son farms in another county where he’s surrounded by several other cattle operations. He moves cattle back and forth between properties. Now my small herd is in essence exposed to thousands of cattle in another county. Frustrating… vract:


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

I know the difficulties of other people's diseases, I struggle with it myself. In our situation I don't have to let our cows into contact with any of the neighbors, although mine do have some contact with our other herds on occasion. Still, there is always going to be the occasional bull or calf on the loose in an area with a lot of cattle and that is all it really takes. 

We try to always buy virgin bulls but that is not a true guarantee and you need to bring in genetics one way or another (I don't like invitro or any of that $#!*).

So I have a complicated view of the whole situation. I try to keep my herd very hardy genetically, do what I can through diet and practices to keep them healthy and their immune systems at their best, and vaccinate very minimally. I also do my best to prepare for the fact that some year I could have my calf crop wiped out by some virus I don't vaccinate for, or even worse, lose my cows (that I can trace back at least to my great grandparents on this very farm).

It is one of those constant niggling little worries that I accept as a consequence of the situation and my choices and hope that I can handle any more troubling consequences, should they ever occur.


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

I didn't get knocked on the warts. That young bull brought a good price. $2.57 and he weighed over 600.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Awesome, I just sold a similar sized bull calf (570lb) and got right around the same price up here. $1500 for a young calf is encouraging to say the least, let's hope it lasts.


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

Inoculation day… hate having to do this but with my neighbor bringing in diseased cattle I have no choice. I went ahead and vaccinated for black leg and wormed them. Several of the young bulls needed castration.

I don’t have a facility like this so I loaded my calves this morning and took them to my cousins. He runs several hundred head so this was a breeze at his place. I loaded 14 calves and was back home in 3 hours.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Cotton said:


> That young bull brought a good price. $2.57 and he weighed over 600.





cowboyhermit said:


> got right around the same price up here. $1500 for a young calf is encouraging


These prices are just staggering to me!!!


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

LincTex said:


> These prices are just staggering to me!!!


Long over due&#8230; right now I have more than $20K in calves in my pastures. There have been many years when the entire herd wasn't worth half that. Those of us who do this know the cost of equipment. You can spend 25 or 50k before you finish your eggs at breakfast. 

It's years like this one that make up for all the bad ones when you barely pay the property taxes&#8230;


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## camo2460 (Feb 10, 2013)

I don't know anything about this subject, but what did ranchers do before there were vaccines? Also, are there any Herbal remedies that could be used?


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

camo2460 said:


> I don't know anything about this subject, but what did ranchers do before there were vaccines? Also, are there any Herbal remedies that could be used?


There is a great old book on the subject. "The Complete Herbal Handbook For Farm and Stable" by Juliette de Bairacli Levy.

Keep in mind, this book was written by a European in the 1950's when there were small family farms everywhere&#8230; a couple of cows, maybe a goat, few chickens.

Fast forward 65 years&#8230; folks are worried about bird flu pandemics&#8230; (one is going on right now), ebola and air travel. Travel&#8230; travel&#8230; travel. Today it affects our livestock just as it does us. Large herds and flocks reign supreme and are often moved 100's even 1000's of miles.

Now you might have a herb or two to treat your cow or goat. What are you going to do with 50, 100 or 1000 head. Got enough herbs for that&#8230;.? Just sayin&#8230; This becomes a "logistical health problem".


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

A logistical problem for sure, but even when things tended to be smaller scale, without vaccines diseases could be horrifically deadly to animals and the societies that relied on them. Look up Rinderpest if you want to see how bad things could be without a viable vaccine.

The solution was generally exposure, culling, and eventual herd immunity.


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

Cotton said:


> Inoculation day&#8230; hate having to do this but with my neighbor bringing in diseased cattle I have no choice. I went ahead and vaccinated for black leg and wormed them. Several of the young bulls needed castration.
> 
> I don't have a facility like this so I loaded my calves this morning and took them to my cousins. He runs several hundred head so this was a breeze at his place. I loaded 14 calves and was back home in 3 hours.


We keep a tiny herd, bull and two cows and their offspring. They have been disease free until we had a change of neighbours. We do parasite egg counts etc, try to keep intervention at a minimum. This guy has introduced us to damn near everything ... and then has the bloody cheek to tell us our two HOUSE COWS are under weight (they bloody well are not, dexters giving 15 quarts a day), don't think he's even seen a dairy breed.
We also decided to use a boundry paddock as our sacrifice ground this year and hand feed in there to get a few more acres producing at optimum. He thinks we should get rid of more stock, none of his damn business !! We have so much good feed coming on and just cause he can't see it he thinks we are crap farmers. 
He pumps anhydrous ammonia into the soil, sees the grass leap up and pats himself on the back, six months later he has to counter every health problem you can imagine in his livestock at much expense but we are the cowboy farmers! 
Sorry about the rant but I REALLY understand what you are saying


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## camo2460 (Feb 10, 2013)

Thank you guys for pointing out the logistics of the problem, now that you mention it, it's like Duh how would you treat 1500 head with Herbs?


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

Herd problem often have simple solutions that are easily overlooked, not that this would have helped in Cotton's case, but this late winter early spring we seemed to have signs of trace mineral deficiency. Our herd always has access to mineral lick blocks. We have a skid trough that holds the blocks, we have always just kept it in the waterer alley.
We did some research and found a more concentrated mineral blocks. During the wait for the new blocks, we put an extra (original mixture) mineral in the pen near the cattle shed (we kept the herd in a small pen at night because of coyote proplems and inexperienced heifers) The cattle really licked the block a lot in the pen. The skid in the alley seems to work very well in grazing season, but in winter the herd stays really tight and they won't hang around in the alley to lick the mineral enough. 
We moved the skid closer to the feed grounds and the signs of deficiency ended. The cows also really went after the more concentrated block for about a week, then the wear on all three blocks looks about the same (real scientific measurement here) 
Anyway done hijacking this thread.


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