There are other things you can use. clean out the barn well. there is a product called Virkon. Needs contact for 10 minutes though. If you are going to use lime and bleach remove the calves from the barn. good idea to start cleaning the barn in sections and moving the calves to a clean area. Keep rotating them until it gets under control.
When you finally get new ones:
I'm guessing that some of the calves could have gotten crypto. It occurs when they have been off milk for one reason or another, like spending 12+ hours at a sale, and then we as new owners give them to much at once. Cut down on the feeding amount but feed more often. For the first 24 hours anyway, then slowly start to increase as they can handle it. You do not want to starve them, just feed more often so their system can handle it again.
I would also give the the new calves electrolyes on arrival. They will be dehydrated from the sale and maybe acidiosus (sp) set in. This would rebalance them.
If the calves are one day old or less, consider getting an oral scour vaccine for the calves. They are indivudal doses, ususally given before the first suck but with in 24 hours when the intestines can first absorb antibodies.
A shot of a sulfa based drug on arrival, if needed to be given daily,( some drugs are 2-3 days between shots) give for 3-4 days.
Keep new calves and old calves separate for a few weeks. No sense in stressing the older ones again, they are just recovering
a boot wash between the separated animals would be good so you do not spred the bacteria or viruses between pens.
When you are feeding go to the healthiest pen first, then the sicker ones or new arrivals. Limiting the cross contaimation.
Wash coverals or clothes after being in the sick pen...again cross contamination.
clean needles, bolus guns between treating animals...again cross contamination, help to stop the spread.
We carry a 4 litre milk jug with a bleach solution. When we are multiple treating animals the bolus gun and drench tube get put in the jug and then rinsed in a jug of clean water. Cross contamination again.
Clean hands between treating animals. this helps you from getting sick...and you can, and prevents cross contamination to between the little ones.
think like a vet.
When a vet moves between farms she has bleached her/his boots. changed coverals, washed hands
between sick animals, cleaned boots, changed gloves, washed hands. Started with the healthy and observed, moved to the sicker ones to check and treat.
Animals when coming from a sale barn co mingle with many others. Baby calves if not given the proper colostrum, realatively stress free birth are like a sponge for viruses and bacteria. A sale barn is ripe with disease. These babies are stressed from the beginning and so they are seseptble to anything. Add to that that when they are born the have ZERO ZILCH immunity.
In a sale barn you have diseases such as IBR,BVD, pnemonia, scours of many varieties, and things i can't even write or pronounce. So take care and quarrentine the new ones until you are sure of their health.
Good luck
RR
EDIT have on hand a bottle of Anafin. Or non steriodal antiinfamatory. Give it to the tube feds. Reduces the swelling from tube feeding.
To minimize the chance of tube feeding in the lungs, have your hand on the throat and you can feel the gun going in the throat. You can not feel it going into the wind pipe. Slowly release the drench, just in case. The calf will cough up a storm if it is in the lung.
