I am raising dairy bull calves on goat milk. At approx. 2 to 3 weeks old calves develop high fever (104.5 to 107), pneumonia, a high number of ear infections, and a few that appear to have some sort of neurological disorder. I have had ear infections in the past, one every 6 mo or so and they would always respond to a course of penicillin. Now I have cases almost every month and they are very difficult and expensive to treat. These too start about 3 weeks of age. Most of the time the calves appear to be healthy but on routine temp checks the high temps are found. The pneumonia seems to respond to treatment at the young ages, oxytet and sustain III but after weaning (5 weeks) seems to come back with a case that is unresponsive to all attempts (above treatment, nuflor, or micotil). Mortality has become very high. I suspect mycoplasma might be a problem and am going to have the milk tested. CMT scores are T to 1 on some goats but negative on the bulk tank sample. My vet does not think that there is any connection between mycoplasma in milk and the pneumonia or ear infections I am experiencing. I would like another opinion. Do you think it's possible that the younger infections are related to the older ones or we possibly looking at more than one cause?

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