New bull scours

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farmguy

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I have never had a problem with calf scours. I have never given a shot to a calf. We calve in May and on clean pasture. I have brought virgin bulls before and do some AI. I am now looking at buying another bull, yearling virgin. Someone mentioned to me I could be bringing some disease in which I never thought of. Any thoughts on the risk? Have I just been lucky? thanks
 
I think you're talking about Johne's diseases (pronounced yo-neez). It infects calves, but doesn't cause the scours until they're older. The intestinal walls thicken until the cow can't absorb nutrients, and they slowly starve to death while they eat as much as they can. I'd recommend getting any cow or bull you bring in to the herd tested. Your vet can tell you what you need to do.
 
Buck Randall said:
I think you're talking about Johne's diseases (pronounced yo-neez). It infects calves, but doesn't cause the scours until they're older. The intestinal walls thicken until the cow can't absorb nutrients, and they slowly starve to death while they eat as much as they can. I'd recommend getting any cow or bull you bring in to the herd tested. Your vet can tell you what you need to do.

Yearlings are not old enough to test for Johnes. Yes you can run the test, but the incubation period hasn't been long enough.
I got in on cleaning up a cow herd so they could achieve a herd free status. The state vets did not want to test any cow that wasn't at least on her 2nd lactation.

I would however make sure a new bull has been BVD tested to make sure he's not a PI. They take a notch out of their ear and send it to a lab.
 

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