Bottle calf scours !!

[polledbull]

how many have you lost ,? have you got the vet out, it is defintly more than typical scours,

 

[regolith]

A bit late now, but I wonder if the State of Florida Agriculture can do anything about this farm. Shut down the sale of calves? I believe it was Bell that my neighbor got the calves from also. Scumbags know they are all dying and sell them anyways with a smile.

Someone else mentioned this or a very similar situation recently. How do they do it, are they preventing the calves getting colostrum or something? Anyone who buys from mixed sources should know there's a risk of health issues, but not to this extent.
The year I bought rotavirus in the first calf was dead the morning after they arrived, and they were only ten minutes journey from where they were born. Lost three out of fifty in the end but I've been told some lose 50% or more of their herd replacements even with the best efforts to save them.

Come to think of it, denying the calves colostrum could be realistic on a dairy farm. The stuff is far more valuable than milk if you've got the market for it; there was a lot of pressure a few years back on dairy farmers here to sell as much as they could spare. Then there's the idiotic practice of pre-milking cows, it's not so long since a business partner tried to insist I do that to all the in-calf heifers. I *hope* it's extremely rare but who knows...

 

[djinwa]

Dang I wish I had seen this when you first posted, I have fed alot of bottle calves in large groupes like that. Baytril and draxxin is the best for most things. But the very best thing for hard to cure scours is 5cc's of ampicillin for 3 days and 1 primor dog pill for 3 days, that will cure about any kind if scours you have. Also be sure to keep them all separated, you will always have trouble penning calves together.

Many different causes of scours. Unfortunately, antibiotics as you suggest, do not work for viruses. May help with secondary bacterial infections, but not if severe viral insult. And antibiotics are no substitute for a functioning immune system, so if they did not get colostrum, much lower chance of helping. If no colostrum intake, they got no immunity from mom, and not enough time to make their own antibodies before dying.

 

[denvermartinfarms]

Dang I wish I had seen this when you first posted, I have fed alot of bottle calves in large groupes like that. Baytril and draxxin is the best for most things. But the very best thing for hard to cure scours is 5cc's of ampicillin for 3 days and 1 primor dog pill for 3 days, that will cure about any kind if scours you have. Also be sure to keep them all separated, you will always have trouble penning calves together.

Many different causes of scours. Unfortunately, antibiotics as you suggest, do not work for viruses. May help with secondary bacterial infections, but not if severe viral insult. And antibiotics are no substitute for a functioning immune system, so if they did not get colostrum, much lower chance of helping. If no colostrum intake, they got no immunity from mom, and not enough time to make their own antibodies before dying.

I was treating symptoms. If they never had colostrum I know some shots and pills isn't going to help.