Scour is going to be an issue on farms during this spring, meaning that a plan needs to be in place for treating calves that become affected by it.
Although the aim is to have no scour on farms during the spring, the likelihood of this happening is very small, with such a large number of calves being present on farms.
Instead, the aim should be to control infections when they occur and reduce the impact that it has on your calves.
Scour
The likelihood that a case of scour will occur on your farm during the spring is quite high – but what is more important, is the impact that it has on your calves.
The severity of a scour case can vary greatly – from nutrition scour, to scour caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites.
Parasites that cause scour are Cryptosporidia and Coccidia; scour-causing viruses include Rotavirus and Coronavirus; and bacteria-causing scour are Salmonella and Escherichia coli (E. Coli).
Many scours cannot be treated with antibiotics, as these are ineffective against viruses and parasites.
Some vets also advise the use of anti-inflammatory drugs in calves with scour to help with pain management, however these should only be used under the recommendation of your vet.
Keeping a low infection pressure, being consistent with feeding, and isolation of sick calves is going to be key for keeping calves healthy.
A pen should be set up to house sick cows until they reach full recovery.
It is important to note that this pens needs to clean and disinfected more regularly than the rest of the calf shed, due to the bacterial load being higher in this pen.
Treatment
Once the calf has been isolated, you need to keep them hydrated, as a calf with scour is losing fluid.
It is important that you continue to feed calves their milk along with electrolytes.
Sick calves should be given 3-4L of electrolytes in separate feeds to their milk feeds.
Antibiotics will be helpful to some calves, and may not work at all for others. Antibiotics should be discussed with your vet before providing them to calves.
Infection pressure
To keep infection pressure low, you should focus on having good hygiene levels within the calf shed.
Thoroughly clean all calf feeding equipment after each use. Ideally, feeders would not be shared between a number of pens.
If vaccinations for scour have taken place on the farm, is it vital that calves are getting adequate amounts of good quality colostrum.
Antibodies protecting calves will not be passed to the calf if they do not receive colostrum, and many of the vaccine manufactures recommend that you provide transition milk to the calf for a number of days.