Calf Talk

August, 2009

Volume 15, No. 8

DON’T CHASE “BUGS”

By: Russ Schnepper, D.V.M.

Calves raised on the farm where they are born are easy to raise compared to the purchased, commingled, long hauled, colostrum deficient calves veal producers and dairy beef producers do on a routine basis. Supposedly, the home raised calf just needs a gallon of quality colostrum and kept clean, dry, and comfortable. Which “bugs” are going to be a problem in a group of new calves? All of them. 90% of the farms in US that were tested, were positive for cryptosporidiosis. On any fecal culture you will find E.coli, as it is a normal inhabitant of the gut. You may find salmonella, rota and corona virus and many more.

Culturing fecal samples is usually futile. There is a saying,”If you culture crap, you get crap for results.” The “bugs” in the lumen of the gut are not really in the calf until it gets thru the gut wall and into the body. If you culture samples from organs like the kidney, liver, lymph nodes, etc., your results may mean something. Diagnostic work done the first week on commingled calves does little to solve your problem. You are merely diagnosing the problem on the farm or origin. Now if you are a custom calf raiser, you may want to know what “bugs” they are sending you. Many experiments that are run on the producers farm give misleading results. The healthy calf standing next to the sick calf will often be positive for the same “bugs” as the sick ones. If you do not culture the “bug” you thought was there, it does not mean it wasn’t there, maybe you just didn’t find it. If you culture a “bug” that you don’t think is the problem, then the culture just means it was there, not necessarily causing the problem. Viruses can be a problem and they will not show up on a bacterial culture. You still need a clinical diagnosis, and the laboratory data can help guide the clinician.

Sometimes we take credit for curing a calf problem with our treatment, when the calf got over it by himself. When a client tells me he cured a calf with what I call an unreasonable treatment, I tell them the next time they have two calves with the same problem, treat one with the magic formula and spit on the other one to see which treatment works the best. You may find you are a good spitter. Likewise, it is difficult to compare treatment and preventative practices between different barns full of calves. As we say, each barn full of calves is a new ball game. So if you are running experiments, do it in the same group of calves so your results will mean something.

Intranasal vaccines and Immunoboost along with functional proteins will go along way in controlling most of the “bugs” you are going to encounter, except Crypto (where I use decoquinate). Also remember that if three “bugs” are working on the calf, and you can help control two of them, the calf can likely handle the third one. Our Quantum Leap Scour Product contains; decoquinate, functional proteins, essential amino acids, FOS (similar to BioMoss), vitamins, and trace minerals. It will handle the majority of the scour “bugs” your calves will encounter the first ten days into your barn. A 1 ml injection of Immunoboost on day one and day eight, will cause the well nourished calf’s own immune system to fire up and handle most infections, except clostridial enterotoxemia, which you control by regular and consistent milk feedings.

PREVENT YOUR PROBLEMS WITH GOOD MANAGEMENT, QUANTUM LEAP SCOUR PRODUCT, AND IMMUNOBOOST.

Contact information for ordering information and questions about our products:

Schnepper International, Inc.

3210 County B, Platteville, WI 53818

608-348-6141, Fax: 608-348-6146