Dying Calves?

[Penkert4]

OK, long story, but really need to figure out why these calves are dying and how to save them if at all possible. Here goes...
My family bought a calf (only two or three days old, if that) from a local dairy, brought it home, gave it a bottle (1 full cup - the one that comes in the bag - of the Dumor Calf Starter in a 2 quart bottle) that it ate fine. The next morning, it didn't want to eat, but we managed to get about half the bottle into it anyway. My dad was home all day and went out periodically to check on it - it hadn't wanted to get up, was really wobbly when we lifted it to eat, that kind of thing - and he just wanted to see how it was doing. It started scouring really bad - pure liquid, smelled like rotten milk, really thin-looking milk, basically. By the following morning, the calf was dead. We thought maybe it hadn't had colostrum, so we took it back out to the dairy we bought it from to dispose of the body, and got another (supposedly older, with colostrum) calf. That calf is now doing the same thing. We bought a bag of electrolytes and some tetracycline at the feed store, and have been trying to save the poor thing.
Yesterday evening, we went to a different dairy and bought another calf. It was fine, jumped around and mooed in it's new pen, that kind of thing. We fed it last night (from a clean bottle and clean nipple), and this morning, same thing! Doesn't want to eat, but we got about 3/4 of a bottle down it this evening. (My mom fed this morning, so I'm not sure how much it ate.)
My question is this: why are these calves dying? Could the bag of calf starter be bad? Is there something we're not giving them that we should be? They have buckets of clean water in their pens, as well. Any suggestions are appreciated, please and thank you!!

 

[Chris H]

First. I looked up the Dumor ingredients, it's got soy in it. You'll have healthier calves with 100% milk in the milk replacer. Might be other things I'm not thinking about, but it looks like you have fresh water covered, got electrolytes. Are they in a barn, or have shade? Dry, not too hot, not too cold?

 

[Lucky_P]

The list is long...
Failure of passive transfer of maternal antibodies - can be a problem even if they got some colostrum.
Rotavirus
Coronavirus
BVD
Colibacillosis (enteropathogenic E.coli)
Clostridium perfringens
Strongyloides papillosus
and... think about making sure you wash your hands, 'cause the next few can also infect you and family members...
Salmonellosis
Campylobacteriosis
Cryptosporidiosis
Giardiasis

Those would be the major players - and fairly common causes of diarrhea in dairy calves - and very frequently, we see a 'mixed bag' of 2 or more concurrently.
Agree with Chris, much better to spend a few extra $$$ on a milk-protein-based replacer.

Fluid/electrolyte replacement is most important. Tetracycline unlikely to be effective against many, if any of the pathogens listed above.
Consult your veterinarian.

 

[regolith]

What I think is going on... and this is not good news if you are inexperienced with calves.

Somewhere between birth and twelve hours after they arrive at your place they've picked up a bug/virus that's causing scours. It could be in your calf pen, either pre-existing or from your sick calves passing it on to the new ones. It could be that the dairies you're collecting calves from are vaccinating against scours, cleaning and disinfecting pens &c and keeping it at bay that way, whereas you bring home a stressed calf and feed it a milk replacer that has no antibodies against the scours, which allows the disease to take hold.
It is *common* for dairy calves to have received insufficient colostrum. There's nothing you can do to ensure the bought calves got a full first feed at birth and then continued to receive good colostrum once they reached the calf shed, except ask a lot of hard questions and hope the replies are honest.

What you can do:
Look up rotavirus on the net. It may be something else, but if this is your problem there's an antigen available from the vet that will help save bought calves.
Disinfect the calf pen. Again, there are disinfectants on the market that claim virucidal properties. Avoid putting healthy calves into any pen that has contained a sick one, certainly don't put healthy calves in with sick calves.
When the calves arrive, offer electrolyte (not milk) the first evening. Start milk feeding in the morning presuming they're still bright and healthy. For calves less than a week old, try and get some colostrum from the farmer and gradually change them over from colostrum to milk.
Ask your farmer if they vaccinate for scours. If they do, then if you can get hold of some of that colostrum it's loaded with the antibodies the calf needs.

If you get a sick calf keep the fluids to them, don't stint on the electrolyte. It's dehydration that kills them, and that causes the wobbliness, difficulty getting up &c. Attention every 4 - 6 hours will pull most of them through, although with rotavirus calves have been known to drop dead without ever scouring. Hopefully that first calf was your piece of bad luck that was going to die no matter what.

Other things: the vet can analyse a sample of scours and tell you what bugs, if any are in it. For three calves from different sources I'm not sure I'd go that route, but it will help pinpoint the cause if it becomes an ongoing problem.
Don't hesitate to stomach tube electrolyte to a calf that is weak and not sucking.

Crossposted with Lucky who is of course entirely correct.

 

[Penkert4]

Thanks everyone! Looks like we will lose the second calf - breathing is really shallow, can't/won't get up and stay up, etc. (That is the one we got at the same dairy as the first calf we lost.)
I will try to address your comments in order -

Chris: The first calf that died was under shade (kind of an open-sided barn), but we live in a small town in west Texas (not the city West, the direction) and it gets hot here (it's almost 6:30 and still in the 90s). It's dry, hasn't rained, and my dad used a hose the morning we got him to kinda wet the dirt down so it wouldn't be quite as dusty. I will tell him about the new milk replacer and see if we can find some. Tractor Supply is where we usually go, but there is also a local feedstore that we can look at.

Lucky: Well crud... That's quite a list, and I'm not sure what kind of antibiotics to look for to hopefully get kill some of that nastiness. Any suggestions? Our vet is on vacation and won't be back until Monday, and I'm not sure that he would be able to test a scours sample anyway - kinda a backwoods type business, but he might, so I will check.

Rego: The second calf did go into the same pen as the first (the one that had died) but we had cleaned it out. Hadn't thought of it being some kind of sickness, just thought it hadn't had colostrum, since we only talked to the teenage son and a non-English speaking hand when we bought him. The third calf, from the other diary, is in a pen a good distance away from the other, with no supplies or anything getting crossed between the two.

I asked my dad, and he said that the cows all get their shots at the dairy, but other than that, we don't know much. Thanks for your input, I really appreciate it!

 

[Dega Moo]

I take it these both are or were very young calves? How have you been feeding the calves? Were they sucking the milk down through a nipple or was the milk being forced into their mouths by squeezing or pouring?

I can't imagine the calves caught something when they first arrived and it manifested itself overnight and killed them that quickly. Yes, if they brought a bug with them but it sounds like this is "next day" stuff.

I have a cowboy who hasn't in four years saved an orphaned bottle calf. He drowns them or kills them by getting lots of milk in the lungs or the rumen. Rather than letting the calf suck milk from the nipple he opens the end of the nipple up with a knife and may as well pour the milk down the throat. The other cowboy and the cowgirl don't lose bottle calves that way. They're patient and make the calf suck.

By the way, it might be a good time to invest in a phone call to your local vet.

 

[Penkert4]

Dega: Yes, the calves have all been very young- no more than a week old for certain, probably only 2 or 3 days when we bring them home. We have been making the calves really suck to get the milk with the first bottles, and my dad thought that might be part of why they didn't want to eat so he cut the hole a little bigger. Not huge, but the milk comes out easier now. Now sure why, but the third calf we got apparently just didn't like those bottles/nipples much, because we bought a new one today (the nipple just pops onto the mouth of the bottle, no screw-on ring to keep it in place) and the little thing sucked so hard and fast we had to take the bottle away for a second to let it catch a breath and keep the bottle from collapsing too much. It took an entire bottle of the electrolytes and then about 1/2 to 3/4 bottle of milk 2 hours or so later, so I'm feeling better about that one now. We will keep praying and working with it- hopefully it will pull through. We had heard that we needed to make sure the calf was standing up, nech arched like it would be under his mama, and we watch to make sure it's swallowing, so hopefully the milk is getting to it's belly and not his lungs. Thanks for the input!

 

[regolith]

Dega moo: infectious scours can knock them over in as little as twelve hours. There's been years I've had to stop using the sheds and raise all the heifer replacements outside for that reason.

Penkert4: several of the conditions Lucky lists cannot be treated with antibiotics. You would need to first identify the problem and research how best to deal with it.

The symptom you're seeing now is scours so focus on keeping the sick calves hydrated (electrolyte therapy). "Barrier nursing" if I've got the term right is when you wash up, change clothes, wash or change the feeding equipment between visiting the sick calves and your healthy ones. Because truthfully prevention is better than cure.

 

[chippie]

Hi Penkert4,
If the calves are little bull calves, I really doubt that the dairy gave them any shots. A dairy tries to get rid of the bull calves as quickly as possible so that it doesn't have much time or money invested in them.
Very often calves will wiggle their tails when they are getting milk while nursing. You can see how full the calf is getting by checking the triangular area in front of it's left hip bone (the left flank). It will fill out when the calf is full.
Good luck!

 

[Penkert4]

Rego: The one that was so sick is gone, and the third calf has been doing better- drinking more, still scouring but we're getting 2 bottles of milk and almost 2 bottles of electrolytes in him each day. Hopefully that is enough... My dad used to be a CNA, so we're really careful about cross-contamination and we make sure we wash everything out really well, and usually my mom and I feed one while by dad and sister feed the other. We will leave the calf in the pen it's in now instead of moving it to the shed where the other 2 have died, just in case.

Chippie: Yes, they're bull calves. We raised 3 about a year or two ago (2 bulls, 1 heifer) and my dad said he would rather have bulls than heifers, just because they get bigger and have more meat (we're only raising them for the beef). We have noticed that- his stomach (between the end of his rib cage and his hips, not sure if that is technically called his stomach, but it works for me) gets a little sunken between feeding a and fills back out after he has had a bottle.

 

[hillsdown]

Sounds you have an e-coli problem .

 

[mknp1]

If you are getting your milk replacer from Tractor Supply then get the Dumor Ultra Plus. It is the most expensive but it is better quality. It contains better ingredients and is made with all milk. The last bag I bought had bovatec in it.

 

[Penkert4]

Hey all, just a quick update- calf we got from the second dairy is doing well. He is about 5 weeks old now, and eating 1 bottle in the morning and another 1 1/2 at night, plus munching on grass and hay throughout the day. Thanks for all your input! Really appreciate it!

 

[regolith]

that's good news!