Recently, while on one of our client’s farms, I was asked to examine a lame calf. It was a six month old limousin cross suckler calf which had developed lameness at six weeks old while at grass.

The farmer had treated the hind limb lameness as an infected joint (joint ill) i.e. with antibiotic injections. The calf always remained bright and alert and very difficult to catch. When she didn’t respond to treatment, it was presumed that she had damaged her leg and would be permanently lame.

When I examined the calf, she was very well in her self but could not place her right hind leg down. It was held permanently slightly up and behind the calf. The muscles at the back of the thigh were tense and the hock could not be bent.

I diagnosed a condition called spastic paralysis. It’s rare, I remember seeing two dairy calves when I was a student, seventeen years ago. It is an inherited disease and caused by the spasm of the muscles of the leg. It can affect both hind legs but luckily this calf only had one affected leg.