scour remedies

[cowman]

Also in one of my posts above it should read "BVD scours" not BSE scours! This alzheimers can be a real problem sometimes! LOL

[cowman]

we knew what you meant !!! You can keep the moles cowman, it goes with the pricy land. They don't like this clay out in my area, and neither to gophers.

[kato]

The best treatment for scours is prevention. It can be done very effectively even when calving in corrals too. Pasture calving may be a good way to avoid scours, but it's not the only way.

Over the years we've developed a few tricks that seem to work pretty well. First thing is to make sure the calves have a clean dry place to sleep out of the weather. We've tried the calf shelter thing in the past, and found those things are nothing but scour incubators. Now we just string an electric wire across the front of the big cow sheds to keep the cows out. It's a big enough area that it stays really nice and dry with just calves running around in there, and you can bed them really well. They are not crowded, and there's room to even give them their own hay bale in there. They really appreciate that, because if you rely on the cows to let them eat out of their feeders, it ain't gonna happen. All the calves will get is the leftovers that have been pounded down, and we all know what that will lead to.

We also vaccinate. Cows get Scourguard, and as a backup, the heifer's calves get a dose of Calfguard when they are born. It's so much cheaper to prevent that try and survive a scour outbreak.

My best advice, learned working at the vet clinic is that if you think you've got an outbreak starting, get a sample of manure from an untreated calf, and get it sent to the lab. Find out what you are dealing with right off the start. We see so many people who don't come for help until after they've lost a bunch of calves, and it's a real heartbreaker to see.

Some types of scours, such as cryptosporidia, can totally demolish an entire calf crop if they get established. A viral scour outbreak is bad, but it can also be stopped in it's tracks by using the Calfguard vaccine. We've seen that happen more than once.

As for the scour remedies, no matter what you use, use it early. If they're 'easy to catch', they're really sick.

[grassfarmer]

Our local vet has some bizarre ideas on scours - not interested in taking samples and identifying what type of scour you are fighting. Instead its pour electrolyte into them, so much that they get bloated and are still squirting out scour a week later but sometimes can't stand. My Dad used to lament the fact that he could get scour samples analysed in 24 hours in the 1960s where it takes them 3-4 days today - how long does it take in Canada?

[kato]

You get an initial result in about a day, but the culture and sensitivity takes a couple of days. That's the part where they test the bug to see which antibiotics it's resistant to.

If my vet refused to send samples to the lab, I'd pester him until he did. How can you treat a problem if you don't know what it is?