Chronic scours

[Limiman12]

Have a calf that is almost five weeks old......  Has had scours, or at least very runny stools since it was three or four days old.    Was defiantly scours at first, now she is just way loose almost white poop.    She has been three days in the vet with IV, we have done pills no milk and electrolytes, we have done shots of antibiotic, one the cow off the cow.....  Running out of ideas to try to get her going....  She has had two rounds of probiotics with a carbon and without....


Cold wet weather has not helped....  Need to get her going. Her first calf heifer mama is milking well and  trying her best, but this little heifer calf is struggling.

 

[JTM]

I hate to give you bad news but she may not get better. From what I have heard they can get scarred up from the scours and lose the ability to digest properly. The one's I have seen get this problem end up getting put down. I hope something better happens for you.

 

[cowman 52]

Don't laugh,  8 oz kaopectate, the people kind. Should slow down things, you can stay on it for about 3 days, I wouldn't hold off the milk totally, just see how it goes, if you get improvement, pro bious and time. Is calf feeling sick? A touch of ban amine may help.

 

[obie105]

When we use to do bottle calves a raw egg every feeding in the bottle would get scours stopped in a day or two.

 

[cpubarn]

Sorry to hear about your scours.  It appears that you have been working with a Vet.  Keep trying, although it is hard.  When you find the solution you will be more prepared when scours returns.

I have a strain of something here that sounds similar, only thing that seems to help is sulfamethazine tablets.  I am lucky they are cheap.  When my son had pigs we had to put sulfamethozine in the water so they would survive weaning.  I think that once it is on the farm, and the bugs will always be here....  You just have to learn to manage them.  I wish there was a magic answer for you.

Mark

 

[ejoe326]

I also wish there was a good answer.

What does your vet think is happening?

We have had pretty much the same thing in a few calves.  Except so far acting ok.  No temp, maybe laying around a little more but for the most part acting like the other calves.

We give the E. Colizer + C tubes at birth and haven't had a scour problem in a long time.  We did use a Clostridal antitoxin as a shot and it did help all but one.  We also are using the sulfa pills.

I know misery loves company but I wish none of us were miserable with this stuff!

 

[vc]

Had a buddy use butter milk, they drenched the calf with butter milk for about a month and the calf recovered. May not be the same problem they had but the systems were similar. I think it had to do with birds droppings and the water or something like that, that caused the initial problem.
Hope things get better soon for you.

 

[firesweepranch]

Has she been tested for BVD? If not, you might want to check. She will shed the virus if she is.

 

[SWMO]

Did the calf have a good supply of Colustrum at birth?  We just lost a twin bull calf 250 lbs to complications from grey scours.

An antitoxin shot will help.  However, sometimes it just doesn't seem to matter.  Our bull calf was recovering from the scours and then his gut died.  I can't find the article about the coltridial toxins or I would add this,  however it can end up killing the gut as it did in our calf.

Good luck.

 

[heilig]

It sounds like maybe crypto. We've been dealing with it for the past month and a half. The only stuff that seemed to help was electrolytes and and a calf scour mix called epic. We also gave them some probiotics called achieve.  Antibiotics won't work if you have crypto.

 

[RyanChandler]

I lost a calf to E. coli this year. Real similar symptoms especially the white scours.

 

[jeffdaniel]

try goats milk an eggs

 

[braunranch]

We had a calf that was a week old that was anemic and scouring at a week off age, thought we'd lose her foresure.
Vet suspected crypto drenched her with safegaurd and 5cc new cells a day and 3cc excenel. Newcells are basically a b12 shot used for run down cattle and race horses.
Excenel is very easy on a stressed calf's system. The newcells help revive a stressed calf.

 

[ejoe326]

Did you use the excenel orally too?  I haven't heard of newcells.  We have one we can get turned around for a few days and then back at it.  We worm all the calves with Safeguard paste when they are really young so she has been wormed already. 

 

[braunranch]

The newcells are in the IM, EXCENEL is subQ or IM.

 

[CAB]

If possible you need to get a positive diagnosis of your type of scours and then do a sensitivity test on it to see what will work to treat the "bugs" that are causing the scour. I hope that it is not crypto. That is one tough depressing bug to combat & it seems like once you have it you will always have to deal with it some way or another. It spreads from calf to calf and cows spread it also once it is ingested. Fort Dodge Labs. used to make a vaccine to cats & dogs that was called Giardia Lambia that seemed to work very well as a preventative against Crypto but since they sold out I cannot find it any longer. I think that Pfizer bought them out and discontinued that vac.
  AgriLabs is the Co. that makes AchievePro with Cryptex and we have been using it for the last 3 years and think highly of it. Anyone that has ever dealt with a bad contagious scours feels your pain. I hope that your scours is of the ecoli version. It will be easier to fight than scours caused by crypto.
  Most calves that are afflicted by a serious scours do better if taken away from the cow for a period of three days and tubed with electrolytes 2 to 3 times daily plus a antibiotic treatment daily. It rehydrates them better plus some scours thrive somewhat on the milk kind of a curtling affect caused by the milk. I know that it seems almost cruel to take it away from momma, but it will normally respond better away. 3 days is about all you can take it away though. Good Luck. Hope this helps you some.