Crypto, Halocur and scours

itmustshine

Member
Location
cheshire
Right I've stumbled upon a big problem this winter. Calves scouring and not reacting to rehydration via volac anti scour.
Samples taken came back positive for crpto and rotavirus. So took a plan of action. Rotavirus corona is ordered but supply won't be til Jan , about now hopefully. In the meantime I've been treating with Halocur from birth for first 7 days.
Before all this tried to have pens all disinfected thoroughly, I'm already bagging colostrum in first 6 hours and feeding colostrum type milk for first week. We're a dairy farm and I've never seen anything like it. The Halocur seems to hold the calf to 10 days to week then scour again, prob rotavirus? then dead.
Next step is to vaccinate, another 8 to calve in rest of this month and thankfully feb will be quiet too. My other thoughts are to snatch calf immediately and use some "old" buildings that are next to house and have not had livestock in over 6 years I've known and only horses previuously.And wear clean new wellies in there. Feed them on bottle for 2 weeks and see how I can get on. Thoughts?
Crypto seems a nasty barsteward aand I don't know where its come from? Maybe other farms to here via clothing if a person has been on 2 farms? it's tough seeing them struggle
 

DrDunc

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Dunsyre
You have my sympathies. Had rota and crypto here in sucklers six year ago. Wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy.

Even calving outside, managing to catch them, dosing with halocur and electrolytes, many still got to less than a fortnight and then skittered to death.

The turning point came when the rotavec corona cow vaccine started working.

Chin up, you'll get through it.
 

Martyn

Member
Location
South west
Hi
We had issues and our neighbour dairy unit also did two years ago. Are you on a bore hole water system, we traced out issue back to out bore hole and had the entire system washed out and a additive added. I can trace the name of the product if you want me too, if you take a sample of your water and stand it in a glass for five days you may see bugs/fuggi grow in the bottom of the glass.

We changed firstly from bore hole to mains water to mix calf powder with really helped, just a sergestion.

After finding the source it took a couple of batches of calves to clear. It was he'll at the time.
 

Samcowman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
We have also had this problem over the last couple of years in our sucklers. Last year we have them provita at birth which seemed to help them cope with the scours better but they still had it. This year we are going to give halocur as well. I think using the shed that hasn't had cattle in for a few years is a good plan. Which they are in there I would give their original accommodation a deep clean with a power washer then disinfect and leave to dry out for as long as you can.
 

jimmer

Member
Location
East Devon
same prob here this year it is soul destroying to get them to ten days or so and they drop dead over night
the rota corona will definately help ,give it to everrything you have dry at the moment regardless of the three week recomendations for it to work ,we had results nearly straight away
we started calving outside again at the same time as vaccination which i am convinced helped
best of luck
 
You have my sympathies also. I've had both in the past and they are utterly soul destroying. If the calves don't scour until 10 days on , then that certainly sounds like rota from my experience. I found that rota didn't hit until then - crypto is earlier.

Until you get your hands on your vaccine , you're probably doing all you can. Yes , agree with other posters that moving shed at least is worth trying. Clean wellies , disinfecting , all worth while.

I found Rota Corona works really well and will give you tremendous peace of mind - the constant worry drags you down.

Same as jimmer says , give it to cows that are less than 3 weeks away. The antibodies will start working in the system quickly.

All the best.
 

Davy

Member
Location
North NI
We hit the same problem around 5 years ago. Crypto is a nightmare in a dairy farm especially if you're calving continuously. Any of the dung samples we tested were negative for coronavirus but started the cows on rota corona, the calves had been receiving halocur previously but cases declined in number and severity with the vaccine introduced. Mothers milk for the first three feeds now, keep the bedding clean etc and we haven't had to use halocur for a long time. Also use a colostometer now which tells you the antibody level in the colostrum to freeze any top quality stuff for future use.
 

itmustshine

Member
Location
cheshire
Many thanks for all your input. Forgot about the freezer, yes I'll get a cheap ebay one.The clean out and deep clean and dry out simply won't happen til spring unless I do half shed and half later, that's something to think about.I'll get on the case and chase up the vaccine. Thanks again for your honest answers
 
Location
West Wales
Get some colostrum bags. Got ours from wynstay I think.

Bags that you fill with your colostrum and freeze but get a quicker thaw and kill less anti bodies.

Also be careful on the temperature that your defrosting at. Too hot and t will ruin the colostrum.
 

jimmer

Member
Location
East Devon
this time of year i dont bother freezing colostrum as i find it will keep for a good three days if kept cold and by then there is usually another one calved to replace the old stuff
 

itmustshine

Member
Location
cheshire
Get some colostrum bags. Got ours from wynstay I think.

Bags that you fill with your colostrum and freeze but get a quicker thaw and kill less anti bodies.

Also be careful on the temperature that your defrosting at. Too hot and t will ruin the colostrum.

Thanks, will look up colostrum bags. I'm pretty experienced at thawing milk, my wife expressed for our little ones and froze it!! Too much personnal info but it worked! :)
 

Mucky overalls

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Europe
Perfect udder colostrum bags are excellent and are imported and distributed by Graham Shepherd at G Shepherd Animal Health 01772 690333 www.gshepherd.co.uk. Graham's an excellent cattle vet and he used to look after our dairy herd before setting up his own animal health company. He has also developed his own range of premium quality calf products including disinfectant's, colostrums, antibody pastes, electrolytes, calf jackets, pasteurisers etc etc
 

rusty

Member
We had similar problems 4 years ago. Now use halacour and Rotavec c. All our cows calve inside and are pulled through to a pen that holds 4 called cows. The heifer calves were left in a passage way between the two pens for about 12 hrs while they were bagged twice with pasteurized colostrum. It later emerged (much later) that this passage way was where the calves were picking up the crypto. A good steam clean of the passage way helped no end. We had been cleaning the other pens but had omitted this passage way and I think this was what caught us out and took us so long to sort out the problem.
 

KellyS

New Member
What is the difference between rota and crypto? I know I have crypto on my farm however I haven't heard of rotavirus before.
 

bovine

Member
Location
North
What is the difference between rota and crypto? I know I have crypto on my farm however I haven't heard of rotavirus before.
Rotavirus is a viral infection. Cryptosporidium is a small, single celled parasite. They are very different.

With any of these infections the effect is cumulative so 2+2=5.
 

tanker

Member
Crypto was one of the most soul destroying things ever..we lost 20 heifer calves in a row until we told to use halocur..couldn't save one before we used it,didn't lose another after we started..
 

Raynard

Member
Location
South
Hi
We had issues and our neighbour dairy unit also did two years ago. Are you on a bore hole water system, we traced out issue back to out bore hole and had the entire system washed out and a additive added. I can trace the name of the product if you want me too, if you take a sample of your water and stand it in a glass for five days you may see bugs/fuggi grow in the bottom of the glass.

We changed firstly from bore hole to mains water to mix calf powder with really helped, just a sergestion.

After finding the source it took a couple of batches of calves to clear. It was he'll at the time.


Never even thought about our reservoir! Does anyone on here actively sterilise their water source? Unfortunately uv not an option as on a gravity fed system.

Cheers

Jimi
 

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