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Rotavirus is a very common cause of neonatal diarrhea. It impacts the small intestine by making the absorptive cells slough off leaving the calf with no way to absorb water nor nutrients.

So what do you do if you see neonatal diarrhea and how do we prevent it? Keep reading.

Treatment of neonatal scours

The most important thing for neonatal scours is to quickly treat the symptoms and make sure the electrolytes are replenished.

If the calves are able to stand and have a good suckle reflex, we can treat with oral electrolytes. Keep in mind that you still need to make sure the calf is getting enough milk to supply its high-energy demand. Do this by alternating electrolyte feedings and milk feedings.

If the neonatal calf is up and sucking, they usually do not need an antibiotic. If calves are down and do not have a suckle, then we need to treat with IV fluids. At this time, we can also correct acid-base disturbances along with providing electrolytes through the fluids. We usually will give an antibiotic and a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory at this time as well.

It is good to not let calves get this sick as these treatments are costly, and sometimes we are unable to pull the calves through. Most of the time, it is worth your money to figure out what is causing the scours so that we can prevent it in the future.

You do this by bringing a fecal sample from a scouring calf to your local diagnostic lab or if a calf dies, bringing it in for necropsy or sending samples in on that calf as well.

Keys to prevention

First, we have to maximize a calf鈥檚 level of immunity against these viruses. We do that by vaccinating our cows between four and six weeks before calving. That way they put all of those antibiodies into their colostrum.

The next thing is the calf has to get high quality colostrum within hours of birth. Is the cow鈥檚 colostrum high quality? Are her teats the right size so the calf can nurse? Did the calf get up and nurse within hours of birth or was he a dummy and missed the timeframe? Was he born in the mud and got too cold so that his body temperature was so low he couldn鈥檛 even absorb anything? Was his mama crazy and wouldn鈥檛 let him nurse? There are so many factors.

If you want to increase your odds, you can supplement the calf with a colostrum replacer and you can support the immune system by giving scour vaccines at birth. There are oral and injectable options.

So now that the calf鈥檚 immunity is high, we need to decrease the amount of exposure to these viruses. That comes with management changes.

Calves should be born into calving groups and never exposed to older calves until they are at least a few weeks old. They should be born in a warm and clean environment.

If you are wondering if the calf got adequate colostrum, you can take a blood sample between two to seven days of age and test the total protein. If the total protein is less than 5.2 grams per deciliter then you know the calf did not get colostrum and that he is at risk for scours and pneumonia.

Conclusion

As with everything in life, greatly successful people are that way because of great effort. Understanding the science and physiologic processes behind calving and calfhood immunity can help you decide if it is worth your effort to try to get things as 鈥渙n time鈥� as possible. Having cows with confirmed calving dates can help with these timing efforts.

It is worth your time to pencil out how much you spend on treating scours, how much death loss there is, and how many calves never reach their full potential because of it. Then compare that to the cost of getting cows into calving groups, vaccinating at the right times, vaccinating the calves at birth, and making sure calves are born in the right environment.