Calf Scours

3 posts
Sun, 05/25/2014 - 09:37 #1

Member for

9 years 11 months
Andrew-Yvonne
Last seen: 03/08/2018 - 21:05
Joined: 05/20/2014 - 18:52

Calf Scours

Hi Farming Community,

My Parnter and i have just got two young Calf's about three weeks old. And one of ours girl's has Scours.

Does anyone have any home remedies to make her better please.

Thank you.

Yvonne and Andrew

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Sun, 05/25/2014 - 13:35 #2
barb
Last seen: 09/17/2019 - 18:07
Joined: 11/23/2011 - 09:38

Yvonne and Anrew,

welcome to the forum.

The answer to this question depends on the reason the little one is scouring. What colour is the scour and how profuse is it?

Does it have a foul odour? there can be a number of reasons for young calves, lambs and other animals to scour.

1. unsuitable feeding formula- wrong type, too little or too much. Some calves are not tolerant of formulas containing either tallow or soy, while others are fine on the same formula.

2. Infection- pale scour with a foul odour. commonly bacterial- get some Scourban from the vet for this.

Coxcidial infection- a small parasite that gets into the gut because young animals like to suck on the dirt and the rails in the yards etc, Like human babies they like to taste everything.The only way to know if this is the cause is for the vet to check out the scour (in this case usually green) under the microscope. This website actually provides a Parasite checking service for this, but this is too urgent to use, as young animals can die very quickly when scouring. The vet can supply the treament for this. There is no natural treatment for this common parasite.

3. Lack of sufficient gut bacteria- normally acquired from the mother in the cholostrum (first milk)- pro-biotics will help with this.

As the calves are only three weeks old, I would assume they are what is called 'dairy beef. Many dairy farmers A I (artificially inseminate) their cows with beef breeds such as hereford or angus so as to be able to sell the calves at the cattle sales or off farm to hobby farmers. The problem with this can be that sometimes the calves are not left with the mother long enough to get the vital Cholostrum needed to activate their gut properly and serious scouring and loss of condition can result. In some cases they will die.

If this is the cause, usually I just buy a tub of plain Greek Yoghurt and dose them up with it. Or you can buy some of the acidopholis tablets for humans and open one up and put the powder from it into the bottle- one in each bottle, for a few days.

These are some ideas to go on with. But if it were me, I would talk to my vet.

cheers,

Barb

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Sat, 06/07/2014 - 16:27 #3
charlie
Last seen: 12/26/2018 - 09:21
Joined: 05/31/2011 - 09:44

Hi Yvonne and Andrew,

Barb has done a fantastic job answering your question with not a lot more to add.

If you are looking for further information you may be interested in the book Calf rearing a practical guide. This book covers in detail disease prevention in calves along with calf scours and neonatal diarrhoea.

Regards,
Charlie

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