Calf dies after exposure to rabies

Friday, April 17, 2009 3:00 AM  |  Printer friendly version | E-mail to a friend | By Steve Huffman

shuffman@salisburypost.com

GOLD HILL — A calf on a farm in Gold Hill has died as a result of exposure to rabies.

The diagnosis was made after the calf's owner, Alton Holshouser, sent the body of the animal to a lab in Raleigh for a necropsy. It died last week.

Holshouser, 61, said he has been involved in the raising of cattle for about 50 years, and this is the first time one of his animals has contracted rabies. He said someone saw a skunk in one of his pastures last month, and said he thinks the female calf may have contracted rabies from that animal.

"They say they're real bad about carrying diseases," Holshouser said of skunks.

He said he was told by officials with the N.C. Department of Agriculture that it's not possible for cattle to pass rabies to one another. Holshouser raises about 15 head of cattle on his farm on Spring Lake Lane.

He admitted that anything he knows about rabies and cattle, he's learned only since his calf died.

"I'm not very familiar with it, and I wish I wasn't this familiar," Holshouser said. "I'd never crossed this bridge before."

He said the diseased calf was only about two or three months old. Holshouser said most of his cattle are registered and said the calf would have been registered had it lived.

Holshouser said that when one of his heads of cattle undergoes a necropsy, the result typically reveals the animal died of pneumonia or some similar ailment. It is almost impossible, he said, to know what killed a head of cattle without a necropsy.

Fran Pepper of Rowan County Animal Control agreed. She said even when an animal has rabies, there are no sure signs of the disease.

"Rabies doesn't exhibit the same symptoms," Pepper said. "Some will walk the fence line and bellow and some won't. There's really no tell-tale signs of the disease."

She said that while this is the first case of rabies being diagnosed in cattle in Rowan County this year, it's not that unusual. Pepper said there have been several instances of rabies being diagnosed in cattle elsewhere in the state this year.

This was the fifth case of rabies reported in Rowan County this year. Holshouser and his wife, Martha, are undergoing post-exposure rabies shots due to their handling of the calf just prior to its death.