Keeping calves healthy to create the best replacement possible is always a priority, but with current tight inventories and replacement heifer values continually skyrocketing, the return on investment of calf health has multifold benefits. Terri Ollivett, D.V.M., of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, provided advice for monitoring several conditions and symptoms in calves in a recent Dairyland Initiative podcast.
While ventilation can come to the forefront of a presumed respiratory problem in calves, noted Ollivett, that with better tools to diagnose, we are finding that many underlying conditions can lead to respiratory illness. While she stated improving air quality for calves is fully supported if there are underlying risk factors for calves, ventilation improvement is not the only management solution that should be explored.
Ollivett’s key points to troubleshoot calf health challenges included three key focus areas.
Characterizing the condition or disease by keeping data. This key step includes keeping full documentation of which calves are getting sick. Noting age, sex, breed, location, weather conditions and looking at trends is a significant piece of the puzzle to identify disease patterns.
Noting the condition of the calf, and what the disease looks like initially. Many common bacterial pneumonia-causing pathogens can be subclinical early in the disease process. The calf may first develop lung lesions from pneumonia and look normal, later showing more clinical signs. Conversely, calves that show common pneumonia symptoms early, such as heavy breathing, fever, nasal discharge, and coughing, could be showing signs that mimic a pneumonia condition, such as septicemia or a salmonella infection. These diseases require different treatments to address, therefore using ultrasounding tools can help identify early lung lesions in pneumonia cases.
Watching and documenting manure patterns and other body functions. When looking at manure, preweaned calves from birth to up to 21 or 28 days of age should have pasty and sticky manure. Ollivett suggested thinking of the texture of manure if held in a paper cup and tipped. Normal manure should stick to the cup and not be easily spilled out. Abnormal manure would slowly run down the side of a cup, this manure could have signs of mucous. Severely abnormal manure would mimic liquid and water, without a sticky texture, and flow out easily. She emphasized that abnormal and severely abnormal manure contributes strongly to abnormal lung health, with most of those cases left undocumented until the calf is not eating and drinking. We don’t know if gut health is contributing to respiratory health if we are not documenting manure patterns. Additionally, Ollivett recommended palpating and ultrasounding the calf’s navel to evaluate umbilical infections. This can be an issue when the infection travels into the abdomen of the calf and further into the liver or bloodstream, leading to septicemia or liver abscesses.
Ollivett concluded by recommending watching all risk factors and focusing on management practices, cautioning hyper-focus on bovine respiratory disease (BRD), which can lead to missing underlying calf health issues, especially septicemia. Additionally, supporting materials for her “wean clean” program can be found at:
https://thedairylandinitiative.vetmed.wisc.edu/home/calf-health-module/
