“We’re over half way calved, and now we have the scours”

Calf scours are often an issue in the latter part of calving, as bug levels rise in our facilities after many calves have already passed though.

You can minimise the chances of this by ...

• Maintain your excellent colostrum procedures – late season calves need a lot of immunity to counteract the extra bugs. Collect the best quality gold colostrum cleanly from the cow, and get it into your newborn calves ASAP.

• Spread calves out as extra space becomes available, avoid overcrowding with no less than 1.5msq per calf indoors , but allow more if they are staying inside for more than 2-3 weeks.

• If warm enough, get calves outside into sheltered paddocks as soon as possible.

• If you have to reuse pens that have had a lot of calves through them or have had sick calves in them already, remove any clumps of faeces from and disinfect all the solid surfaces, clean out all feed and water troughs, and either dig out bedding, or at least lay a decent thick layer of new bedding over the top.

• Keep yourselves and your calf staff smiling – positive people rear the best calves. Morning tea or other treats may be required.

Rehydrate is an electrolyte mix that our practice formulated. Its ingredient list is far superior to that offered by many other commercial preparations but at a fraction of the cost.