Blood in stool of new born bottle fed calf

[Bar E]

Seen Lil baby had a poo this morning, had a hint of blood in it, poop looked brown with a tinge of yellow. It has had 3 helpings of milk replacer already. (Two yesterday and one this morning.) 20-20-20 formula. No soy in it. Is this normal or am I being a worry wort?
-E

 

[M-5]

Yes it's fairly normal to see a free streaks of blood

 

[Bar E]

Ok thank you M5

 

[farmerjan]

It is not unheard of but watch closely as it often can mean coccidiosis. Usually shows up after 10days - 2 weeks or so but have had new babies have it too. I wouldn't do anything drastic yet just keep a close eye. Did the calf get colostrum? If it gets weak, wobbly or doesn't want to drink then jump right on treatment for coccidiosis, for starters, as they can dehydrate so quick. Coccidiosis is very easy to treat and get rid of.

 

[Son of Butch]

Or worse salmonella and that's not an easy one to treat.

 

[Bar E]

It is not unheard of but watch closely as it often can mean coccidiosis. Usually shows up after 10days - 2 weeks or so but have had new babies have it too. I wouldn't do anything drastic yet just keep a close eye. Did the calf get colostrum? If it gets weak, wobbly or doesn't want to drink then jump right on treatment for coccidiosis, for starters, as they can dehydrate so quick. Coccidiosis is very easy to treat and get rid of.

I bought her yesterday at an auction sale. Not sure any background info.

 

[SIMMGAL]

It is not unheard of but watch closely as it often can mean coccidiosis. Usually shows up after 10days - 2 weeks or so but have had new babies have it too. I wouldn't do anything drastic yet just keep a close eye. Did the calf get colostrum? If it gets weak, wobbly or doesn't want to drink then jump right on treatment for coccidiosis, for starters, as they can dehydrate so quick. Coccidiosis is very easy to treat and get rid of.

I bought her yesterday at an auction sale. Not sure any background info.

I've had some shoddy luck with buying young calves from the sale barn. They usually seem to pick something up from there. In a newborn, it's normal. In an older calf, its more troubling. If you're wondering (and especially since you have limited background info on the calf), it doesn't hurt to mix some corid in the milk you're feeding it.

 

[TCRanch]

I'm currently supplementing a calf that had a little blood in her stool and she would hunch her back, wasn't as thrifty/developing as well as this cows previous calves. Called the vet thinking it could be coccidiosis and he said she probably wasn't getting enough nutrition. Checked the cows milk & sure enough she has mastitis (cow is doing better after treatment, calf is doing GREAT). Seeing as how you just bought this calf, I'm assuming it had a rough start, possibly little or no colostrum but too late to remedy that. I started my calf on electrolytes then mixed electrolytes with replacer and now just replacer. No more blood, poo is normal.

 

[farmerjan]

I would agree with both that some electrolytes, and some corid would be a good preventative. Another thing that I usually do with a calf I know little/nothing about is to get some probiotic paste or powder and give it to them to get the bacteria in their gut tract up and working.
Regardless, if I buy a calf at an auction for any reason, I will give it at least one dose of colostrum. You don't know how old it is, and although the experts say the window for absorption of the antibodies is 24 hours, there is proof that the action of the colostrum being thicker also helps to get the gut tract to working better. So, no matter how old the calf MIGHT be, they get a bottle of colostrum when they get here unless they have come off a dairy directly that I know starts their calves off right.
Since you don't know what this calf did/didn't have, I might be inclined to go with a medicated milk replacer, but you will have to have a VFD for that, thru your vet. And I do not feed medicated milk replacer as a rule.