Septic navels

[organicguy]

We seem to get more septic navels than we should.
How do you treat navels?
What do you use?
What % of septic navels would you expect?

TIA

OG

 

[Farmer_1994]

We have used an iodine solution and dip the navel as soon as you can with that. Dries it up and protects it for a bit. Best thing we’ve done for prevention is get the new born calf out and into a clean hutch ASAP. Also we religiously bed our calving area with fresh bedding. We no longer dip navels and we have none getting infections since we made sure calves are getting born on clean bedding and out to a hutch.

 

[Princess Pooper]

10% Iodine with alcohol in an old teat cup, once Mum has stopped licking calf off. If she then licks it off before separation then we do it again when they are separated (usually 4-12 hours depending on time of calving). I'll happily do it again if the navel does not seem to be drying within 24 hours. We only calve about 80 but haven't had an infection in the last 4 years. I think under organic you have to keep them together longer than we do, so Mum might be licking it off.

 

[Grassman247]

We calve over a thousand and don’t get a single one, protocol for staff is dip when she calves and dip again when moved into the calf shed.

You’ll find calves with joint ill if there navels haven’t been dipped properly aswell

10% idione and don’t water it down

 

[frederick]

Adequate colostrum????

 

[lazy farmer]

Adequate colostrum????

Would agree with that plus adequate straw at calving.

 

[buffalo_soldier]

Check production of and colostrum transfer.

Cleanliness, fresh straw and iodine is the icing on the colostrum cake.

 

[worker]

Check production of and colostrum transfer.

Cleanliness, fresh straw and iodine is the icing on the colostrum cake.

Navel clips and iodine. Calve 400 a year and never have joint ill. Get navel clips online or from mole valley farmers.

 

[The Agrarian]

Disagree with the colostrum effect. We had a problem last winter with navels, despite very good colostrum management. In my opinion it's 99% bedding and calving management. Our issue was not only having some navel ill, but that the bug was resistant to 9 out of 10 antibiotics cultured. Frammamycin was the only thing that stopped them dying. Oh, and they didn't have an obviously infected navel either. We hadn't a clue what was happening to those calves. They just gradually stopped drinking over the period of a week, shrivelled up and died. Only postmortem revealed what it was, where it migrated straight to the liver. Scary stuff.

Up north west, we have a bad habit of being economical with straw, considering some of it has been known to make a 12 hr journey to get here. Our springers lie in cubicles until literally a few hours from calving, so mistakes can happen with that system. Especially now our crossbreds, in calf to easy calving bulls, are coughing the calves out so quickly, we are getting some on concrete, which isn't good of course. So calving is happening outside now as much as possible, made do-able by having cows that get on with it themselves without intervention anyway.

 

[Tarw Coch]

10% Iodine with alcohol in an old teat cup, once Mum has stopped licking calf off. If she then licks it off before separation then we do it again when they are separated (usually 4-12 hours depending on time of calving). I'll happily do it again if the navel does not seem to be drying within 24 hours. We only calve about 80 but haven't had an infection in the last 4 years. I think under organic you have to keep them together longer than we do, so Mum might be licking it off.

Regarding the cows licking the iodine off the calves navel, spray a bit on the calves hind quarters, that way cow can get her iodine fix there..............hopefully.