On dairy farms and with calf rearers, scours have been a major problem this year. Some farmers have seen it all before but for others it has been a whole new challenging experience!! A few points to note after the experiences so far,
A wet spring everywhere with very muddy challenging conditions has meant more calves than usual received inadequate colostrum. These calves become a real problem when they get the scours and many have had prolonged recoveries or died.
Cheap milk powder doesn’t help!! It’s generally cheap for a reason (normally because it is rubbish!) While healthy calves may survive on poor quality milk powder scouring calves won’t. These powders tend to fail to curdle properly, resulting in poor digestion and further scouring and bacterial overgrowth.
Beef cow farmers picking up calves for mothering on should heed the warnings in last months newsletter. You risk bringing rotovirus and cryptosporidia in particular onto your property, so have isolation and quarantine procedures in place (check the August newsletter).
When all calves have exited the calf sheds, dig them out and spray them down with disinfectants immediately. Then let the sun and wind dry them out as much as possible to minimize “bug levels” next spring.
Once dried out sheds can be refilled with clean dry bedding well before spring.