CARE OF CALVES

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 200, 21 May 1936, Page 14

CARE OF CALVES

Prevention of Scouring in Infancy

WATERED MILK AS CURE

(By

Cultivator.)

Before very long now dairy-farmers will again be faced with the problem of rearing calves. Farmers generally recognise the great importance of caretui feeding and general management of the young animals from birth, and no good can be done by stressing that point further here, but there are always new methods designed for the better welfare of the animals that are worthy of consideration. Two series of calf-feeding experiments carried out at the University College, Dublin, and on privately-owned farms, for the purpose of studying the causes of scours in calves, provide interesting in formation.

These experiments revealed the fact that digestive disorganisation in pailreared calves is due to abnormal curd formation in the fourth stomach. This, in turn, has been shown to be the cause of casualties. Post-mortem examinations showed an accumulation of dense, cheesy curd that had caused irritation of the stomach lining and sometimes rupture of the blood vessels. This condition was caused by the inability of the proteolytic enzyme, or nepsin, of the stomach to digest, in tlie~intervals between successive feeds, the clot produced by the action of rennin on the milk.

Experiments both at the college and on privately-owned farms suggested a simple method of treatment. This is the dilution of milk with water with the object of modifying the nature of the rennin clot. This method has been proved highly successful, both as a preventive and as a remedy. In all cases the proportion of water to be added to the milk depends on the number of times the calf is fed daily, and on the relative vigour of the stomach pepsin in the individual animal. The withholding of all milk and the feeding of water only for a day. followed by a much-diluted milk for a few days, caused the disappearance of the accumulated curd from the stomach. One example of successful treatment is afforded in the method of feed in j* adopted with some 12-day-old calves that were seriously ill. and showing persistent diarrhoea. TJiese were given a mixture of equal parts of water, the water being first boiled and then reduced to blood heat before being added to the milk. This was fed four times a day, one pint being given at each meal for the first day and followed by two pints until in six days the diarrhoea had disappeared and normal conditions returned. Other calves that developed similar symptoms of disorder received water for one day only, the quantity given being two parts per feed three times in 24 hours. This was succeeded with milk and water in equal parts, given nt the same rate for the next two days, by which time the faeces were again normal and the symtoms of ill-health had disappeared.

Those methods of treatment were employed oil one farm which was much troubled by contagious white scour among the calves, the loss of a very considerable number of young animals being attributed to this complaint. When the treatment was given, however, and all animals had some water added to milk from birth, the number of casualties wrm reduced to one-half, indicating that in about half the cases of ill-health previously experienced among the calves the diarrhoea, was of a nutritional rather than a bacterial origin. Reports from numerous other farms wore of a similar nature, and practical feeders are stated to be agreed that what was then a very big problem has since been solved. It is also stated that, calves that are pail-fed from infancy rarely make the same progress as those suckled by the cow. When feeding is done twice daily by the pail process the quantify of milk ingested at each meal is .six or eight times greater than that which would have been taken at any other time by a calf that, was at liberty to suckle trout the cow at frequent intervals. It has been noted that very severe cases of stomach disorder among milk-fed calves occur where stale-milk is fed. This, it is suggested, is probably due to the fact that n second clotting agent is introduced, this being acid. "An acid milk entering an acid stomach may in a very short time reach a point at which, even in the absence of rennin, clotting would occur, and in the meantime rennin clotting has been proceeding.