PERSISTENT scours in bottle calves

[raykour]

I have 3 bottle calves, 1 2 weeks old, 1 3 weeks old, and 1 10 days old.

They have had PERSISTENT scours for over a week. I mean just shooting yellow water. I have had scours problems before but never like this. I just can't keep them ahead, hydration wise. One of them has mild temperature, so I started treating her with oxytetracyline. I am also giving them anti-diarrheal (pepto), probiotics, and an anti-diarrheal bolus (has pectin and stuff like that in it to firm things up) The 2 without the temperature have a decent appetite. The one with the little fever is a smaller calf, but she still isn't getting enough in my opinion...I can get her to suck abut 6 pints a day. For feed, I am giving them Arrest, which is formula for stressed calves in addition to milk. The healthier 2 thus are consuming 2 gallons each day (1 gallon milk, 1 gallon Arrest) but this is STILL not making up for the deficit. Yesterday morning, one was so dehydrated he was hypothermic and I had to warm him and tube him.....the previous Friday we had to put an IV in him. I am just at my wits end trying to figure out why these calves won't start to improve at all.

My vet has seen them and gave me a bicarb/dextrose solution to syringe feed them to stave away acidosis. It was the vets feeling this did not need to be treated with antibiotics, although we treated one with penicillin (because in the beginning I thought he was toxic because he was bloating as well) and he is just the same as the other two. I'm just terribly frustrated as I spend hours each day nursing these calves!

 

[sim.-ang.king]

You need to give them a round of OTC boluses the first day it showed up to take care of the of the Bacterial problems, and possibly keep their immune systems healthy enough to not get viral scours. Now you can still give them give them OTC to prevent secondary infection, but for the viral scours all you can do is the same, plus give them a bottle electrolytes (drench them if you have to), clean out the pen their in, and hope it clears up. Probably someone else that has some other helpful tricks.
But look on the bright side, if they make it through, you won't have to worry about viral scours again.

 

[raykour]

Thanks. I will try the OTC on all of them. The one with the temperature has been on the OTC boluses. I'm just worn out. They are a full time job.

 

[skeeter swatter]

Try putting them on electrolytes only for 2-3 days. Feed in place of milk, it will starve the bugs that cause scours.
good luck

 

[Koffi Babone]

Diarrhea in newborn calves (0-3 days old) is mostly caused by E coli. Although there is a vaccine for the dam, the most important preventative measure is absorption of good quality colostrum asap (within 6 hrs of birth, the earlier the better. Give 10% of the boby weight per day) and disinfection/dipping of the navel in 5% iodine tincture (ideally 3 times/day or more)

Diarrhea in calves about 1 week old is usually caused by rotavirus or coronavirus, as the previous poster stated, there is not much you can do except symptomatic/supportive treatment (treat for the dehydration: fluids and electrolytes). There is a vaccine available against those viruses but it is given to the dam. If this is a recurring problem, you should talk to your vet about this vaccine (it is a lot cheaper to vaccinate than to treat a sick animal).

Cryptosporidium can happen pretty much at any age, but is mostly seen at around 2 weeks. This bug is a zoonosis and is very unpleasant for humans, wear gloves when handling a positive animal. If I recall correclty, there is not much in term of treatment.

Coccidiosis occurs at about 1 month or older. This can be treated with trimethoprim sulfa based drugs.

http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/digesti ... nants.html

Good luck

 

[branguscowgirl]

Raykour, I have nothing to add except for good luck. I hope that they turn around soon so that you can get some rest.

 

[cowgirl8]

Scours wont kill them, but dehydration will. Quit using milk and go with resorb and bag them if they wont drink it. When they appear to be not going down hill anymore, mix a tad of powered milk with the resorb, if they do ok, next time mix a little more milk...Once they are good enough to nurse a bottle, full milk...Never let them get dehydrated, its very hard to pull them out of that.

 

[raykour]

The product I am using is some sort of electrolyte/meal replacer. It turns jelly like after about 15 minutes. It is called Arrest.

This morning I got 2 calves to take 4 pints of Arrest followed by 4 pints of milk replacer about 1/2 hour later. The weaker calf (who is also very small) took about 2 pints of the Arrest and 1 pint of milk. She is small (50 lbs?) and my tube feeder simply won't pass.

At at any rate, today every seems to be holding steady.

I am leaning towards rotavirus due to their age, and the fact that I seem to at some point have become infected with it also unless it is just a coincidence. Despite best efforts, having 3 squirting calves sucking on me, swinging their watery diarrhea tails, cleaning them, and caring for them constantly, it would not be too surprising.

 

[cowgirl8]

For the smaller i wont allow anyone to bag them. I use a big syringe and some tubing like aquarium air tubes.....I cut it about 6 to 10 inches and feed the small ones slowly and more often.
The most important thing is to keep giving them fluids while they are lethargic, and not milk. As long as you keep them hydrated they should survive.

 

[alisonb]

I am leaning towards rotavirus due to their age, and the fact that I seem to at some point have become infected with it also unless it is just a coincidence. Despite best efforts, having 3 squirting calves sucking on me, swinging their watery diarrhea tails, cleaning them, and caring for them constantly, it would not be too surprising.

Had to grin when I read this...priceless! I remember a hot summer's day, 18 calves swinging their watery diarrhea tails.... :lol:

Good luck, hope it clears. You may have to separate them as they keep reinfecting each other.

 

[jerry27150]

what kind of replacer are you using, 20% fat & protein made from milk products, over feeding will also cause this.

 

[branguscowgirl]

I am leaning towards rotavirus due to their age, and the fact that I seem to at some point have become infected with it also unless it is just a coincidence. Despite best efforts, having 3 squirting calves sucking on me, swinging their watery diarrhea tails, cleaning them, and caring for them constantly, it would not be too surprising.

Had to grin when I read this...priceless! I remember a hot summer's day, 18 calves swinging their watery diarrhea tails.... :lol:

Good luck, hope it clears. You may have to separate them as they keep reinfecting each other.

Made a good visual for me also! Good luck, I hope it turns around soon for you!

 

[raykour]

what kind of replacer are you using, 20% fat & protein made from milk products, over feeding will also cause this.

I use an all milk milk replacer. This isn't your typical "milk scours" sort of stuff, at least not that I have experienced.

 

[jerry27150]

ever try raw egg in some whisky

 

[raykour]

Well, the score is tied for now.

The steer calf is over the hump. He eats eagerly 2 GALLONS per day (he has a lot of catching up to do I suppose)

2 heifer calves, I lost one today. Of the the 3 calves, she was the oldest and most "well-established" when this started. She has seemed to feel dumpy over the last several days and run a very mild fever, but she was still eating as she should. This morning she was close to comatose. I got her warmed up, got fluid into her, etc. but I couldn't get her to bounce back.

The other heifer calves acts similar. She is just dumpy. She is not running a fever though, but she is not inclined to eat very well and the real clincher is she is too small to pass an esophagael feeder. Anyway, still fighting the fight with her. Syringe feeding her the rest of her feeding after she won't suck anymore and added B12 injections.

Thankfully, my own version of whatever is ailing us has cleared up for me.

 

[branguscowgirl]

So sorry to hear that you lost her! What a bad deal you are going through. I am thinking of you working so hard on those little buggers. Stay strong, hopefully it will improve soon!

 

[raykour]

I eventually lost all of these calves.

The second I cannot quite figure what got him. He ate like a hog, but his poop never firmed up. He had lots and lots of meds early on, I just htink his little organs couldn't handle it.

The third got over the hump in the scours, then went respiratory.

To appease my children, I got another calf and she is now about 5 weeks old and doing well. I penned her in a separate area from the other ones, but she still seemed to come down with whatever they had. General consensus is the initial issue with the other calves was crypto and they took it so hard because they didn't get enough colostrum. This gal had 2 doses of colostrum (2 pints each) at the dairy I got her from (cross bred calf....looks like she is a belted galloway/holstein mix) and she recovered without too much incident. She should make a good cow for me in the future, but still not pleased about losing the other 3.

 

[redsimangus]

We find that on persistent scours that dont clear up that you treat them with sustain III boluses and give them one extra pill than the actual dosage and also hit them at the same time with baytril. it clears them up within a day usually