BLOAT INVESTIGATIONS: I. REDUCTION OF BLOAT INCIDENCE IN DAIRY CATTLE WITH PENICILLIN AND ANTIFOAMING AGENTS

Adverse outcome of using tilmicosin in a lamb with multiple ventricular septal defects

A 15-day-old, 6.08 kg, lamb was injected subcutaneously with tilmicosin 15 mg/kg body weight. Approximately 15 min later, the lamb died. During necropsy, the heart was found to have multiple ventricular septal defects. Death was attributed to sudden heart failure due to the cardiac effects of tilmicosin in a heart having congenital defects.

BLOAT INVESTIGATIONS. PREVENTION WITH POLOXALENE, TALLOW, PLURONIC, AND PHOSPHORUS ON ALFALFA

Freshly-chopped, immature alfalfa was fed to cattle in three experiments. In the first experiment, bloat incidence on treatments of poloxalene as a top dressing and 10% tallow in grain were compared with the control. There was significantly less bloat on the poloxalene treatment, on which bloat did not occur, compared with a bloat incidence on the control of 13.6%. The tallow treatment resulted in 10.2% bloat, which was not significantly less than the control. There were 21 animals on test for 42 days. In the second experiment, bloat incidence was determined in 80 animals over 14 days on treatments of poloxalene as a top dressing, poloxalene in molasses and salt blocks, pluronic in water, and a control. There was a bloat incidence of 4.6% in the control group. This was a significantly greater incidence than in the poloxalene top dressing treatment, on which bloat did not occur. Bloat incidences of 2.9 and 2.2% in the poloxalene block and pluronic treatments, respectively, were not significantly different from the control. In the third experiment, free access to 14.3% disodium phosphate in cobalt-iodized salt did not significantly reduce bloat. Average bloat incidence in a 90-day bloat test with a total of 14 animals was 7.7% for the control group and 6.7% for the phosphorus treatment.