calf has scours need HELP

[vitamin A]

my calf has scours what do i do?i haven't had alto of experience.so need suggestions.

thank you

 

[she-earl]

You need to get some medicine to stop the scours. A calf will dehydrate quickly from scours. How old is the calf? You can get medicine that goes right in the milk or you can get packets of electrolytes that you mix in warm water to feed. We would alternate an electrolyte feeding and then a milk feeding. If the calf has scours really bad, you may need to use whole milk instead of milk replacer. A "home remedy" to at least "put a plug" in the calf is 3/4 cup of flour in a quart of warm water. This is just to "stop the flow" but you need medication of some kind for your calf.

 

[glenolam]

We need a little more info to help such as:

Age?

Weight?

Bottle calf or not?

If Bottle calf, how much forumla?

Does the calf have really runny poops or just a litte mess on the back end?

Is the calf lethargic or is it still spunky?


A lot of feed stores sell products such as Scour halt or Scour Ease and should help ease the scours. Stop feeding milk (if it's on a bottle) and only feed the scour halt stuff and electrolytes until the calf is back to normal.

 

[vitamin A]

the calf is 4 days old and we are bottle feeding him.we are giving 10 oz.of formula in a 4 pint bottle.poop is runny but not really really runny.calf is about 100 bounds give or take 5 pounds. hes is pretty spunky.

thanks alto

 

[she-earl]

If the calf was put straight unto milk replacer and not gradually switched from milk over to milk replacer, it will tend to get a belly ache. I assume you are feeding the calf twice a day. I would suggest using 75% of the milk replacer in three pints of water. The calf should also access to a calf starter feed and fresh water. If you put some feed in the cal's mouth it will help get it started on the feed.

 

[vitamin A]

well we got it from a dairy the very day it was born.and they take it away from its mom rite after its born.and its had the amount of colostrum it should need.

thank for every thing

 

[Beekissed]

A hundred pound dairy calf at 4 days old???

 

[jhm47]

A hundred pounds is not unusual for the larger breeds of dairy cattle.

 

[vitamin A]

ya he's pritty big we got the gidest there

 

[Joost deGroot]

A healthy calf needs about 10% of its body weight in milk or other fluids like water for growth and maintenance. A scouring calf needs at least 15% of milk or water with electrolytes. Another thing that is important for a young calf is a constant quality and temperature of the milk.
If the stools are white, it can be nutrition related and most of the time medication isn't necessary. Only in cases of scours caused by bacteria, antibiotics are useful. If viruses are causing the scours the only thing you can and must do is to support the calf to overcome its scours. This means keeping the calf active and drinking.

Prevention of dehydration is always a good thing to do, even in cases of mild occurance of scours. In such a case, continue feeding the calf its normal proportion of milk and after a couple of hours, give the calf warm water with electrolytes.