Calf scours

[J Ann]

Hi,

Had a batch of 28 3-4 week old calves arrive on farm two weeks ago. And last Friday had another 22 calves 3 weeks old arrive on farm split into two groups. All calf’s have come from the same farm.

Are drinking 3L (per fed) of milk each morning and night, and a total of two bags of milk power a day (20kg bags).

We put spot on the first batch of calves on Saturday, and since Saturday the 28 calves look rough. They look like they have been sweating and have scours (like water, which is sand colour). they have gone off their nuts too, and don’t think they are drinking much water. They have straw available.

However the second batch of calves (haven’t put Closamectin spot on) are fine

Any suggestions?

 

[Holsteinfriesian90]

Obviously they are dairy cross calves? Why did you use closamectin on them?

 

[Sheepykid]

Hi,

Had a batch of 28 3-4 week old calves arrive on farm two weeks ago. And last Friday had another 22 calves 3 weeks old arrive on farm split into two groups. All calf’s have come from the same farm.

Are drinking 3L (per fed) of milk each morning and night, and a total of two bags of milk power a day (20kg bags).

We put spot on the first batch of calves on Saturday, and since Saturday the 28 calves look rough. They look like they have been sweating and have scours (like water, which is sand colour). they have gone off their nuts too, and don’t think they are drinking much water. They have straw available.

However the second batch of calves (haven’t put Closamectin spot on) are fine

Any suggestions?

Have you taken temperatures of any of them?

 

[coomoo]

Phone the farmer direct so many variables

 

[jed]

Obviously they are dairy cross calves? Why did you use closamectin on them?

We did them with spot on as we have had an explosion of flies this last 10 days have used it many times in the past with no adverse effects .
jed (J Ann’s dad)

 

[J Ann]

Have you taken temperatures of any of them?

Yes blue x dairy calves.

No I haven’t. They look happy, just got the scours.

Like Jed said, they had flies all over them and have used it in the pass on calves

 

[Sheepykid]

Yes blue x dairy calves.

No I haven’t. They look happy, just got the scours.

Like Jed said, they had flies all over them and have used it in the pass on calves

First thing to do is take a few temperatures. I doubt the closamectin would of made them unwell. Off there feed would suggest a fever. Which would be my guess. Then it could be a multitude of things that’s caused it. Do you vaccinate?

 

[jed]

We do vaccinate with rispoval 4 but they haven’t had there first dose yet was planned for next week.
Will do a poo test on them maybe it’s something else and it’s just coincidence that it’s happened when we have treated them with spot on

 

[le bon paysan]

Ok , so
Closamectin is a PO wormer . Read the OP.
Deltamethrin is a spot on fly repellant
Have you mixed up what you treated them with?
If you used closamectin then the probable answer is an overdose

 

[jed]

She has they were treated with spot on (deltamethrin)

 

[startinghandle]

It's a long time since we had calves , but I remember getting some pills from the local agri health merchant which did the trick
You need to do something quick

 

[GmB]

Norodine jab and watch out for dehydration

 

[Princess Pooper]

1. Temperatures
2. Poo sample to vet asap. Most common causes they can test for there and then (or you can buy a kit yourself).
Spot on may be a red herring but do mention it.
Also ask the source farm if they have had any problems.

Antibiotics not effective for most causes of scour but metacam is, as well as helping them feel better especially if they have a temperature.

It's the dehydration that kills and especially in this heat you may lose some. At that age I would be feeding more than that even if they weren't scouring (our beef x calves get 3.75 l twice daily from day 1 for the first 4 weeks as long as they will drink it and it's rare that they do), but if scouring they need much more fluid. Make sure ad lib water is available and talk to vet about a decent electrolyte. Hope you get it sorted. Try not to take any contamination from the bad group into the healthy group.

 

[moo-baa]

Hopefully you will get something off the dung samples. We had something similar last year. Not after a fly treatment. Just went through the whole batch and it was rotavirus. Identified through sample.

 

[Sandpit Farm]

I wonder if they have had a bad batch of colostrum. It’s often a way in for rotavirus. Unfortunately you have no way of knowing but I guess it would be useful to feed back to the farm of origin. They need a 3l feed of clean ‘22+ reading’ colostrum in the first 6 hrs (ideally ASAP) and another similar feed within 12.

Bare in mind that dairy farms will be giving their best colostrum to heifer calves. They may not be testing at all.

Some will say test for BVD but I’d expect that to manifest itself more as pneumonia in a batch of calves.

 

[Princess Pooper]

How are your calves now, @J Ann ? Do you have a diagnosis? Hopefully they are picking up? Is the other batch still OK?

 

[yorkshire8]

Jab with metacam and 3 days of norodine. Could be coxi get a sample off to the vet.

 

[jed]

The calves are looking a lot better thanks poo Sample came back negative for everything she has cut back powder slightly and they seem to have stopped sh1tting.
Eating nuts and straw again so bit of an odd one as to what caused it .Stess maybe as we had dehorned them the day before we treated them with the spot on! But I doubt it really .
Maybe they had a touch of Covid !
Not sure we will get to the bottom of it .
Jed (JAnn’s old man )

 

[Princess Pooper]

Glad to hear they have picked up, nothing more demoralising than a pen of sick looking calves.

 

[Celt83]

I know I'm a bit late to the party but I think the scour tests are an essential part of modern calf rearering kit.

It doesn't take much to give a calf an upset stomach, water temperature, powder calibration bedding to name but a few.

Deltamethrin will make the calves look rough after 24hrs as it works through their skin and they will have runny eyes.

If the scour is watery and straw yellow colour it could be cocci. (ask your vet about it).

Out of interest what percentage solids are you feeding your CMR at? We have moved from volume and instead looked at concentration.