Scours , Latest & Featured - Canadian Cattlemen

Two calves on pasture. The Sandhills system works by lowering the pathogen load newborn calves are exposed to on calving grounds.

Shifting to the Sandhills calving system to cut scours in young beef calves

While it’s not for every operation, the Sandhills calving system can reduce diarrhea in young calves

By Bruce Derksen March 25, 2024

Cow-calf producers across North America face wide-ranging challenges each calving season but scours and neonatal diarrhea often top the list. Various systems are used to help prevent what can become devastating losses when these pathogens gain a foothold. An established approach still growing in popularity is the Sandhills calving system, designed to separate newborns and […] Read more

Calving, Cow-Calf, Livestock, Scours

Surviving scours

Prevention is the best medicine, but when you’re in the middle of an outbreak, it’s all about getting through it

By Lisa Guenther January 15, 2024

Scours. It should be a four-lettered word, for all the misery it causes on cow-calf operations. Even with the best preventative practices, outbreaks can pop up in herds. And in the middle of an outbreak, the focus is on survival, for calves and humans alike. During an outbreak, producers are generally going to see a […] Read more

Scours

AUDIO: Dealing with a scours outbreak in cattle

By Lisa Guenther October 31, 2023

Scours is always an unwelcome guest during calving season, and one that can visit even the best-managed herds. In this interview, Dr. Claire Windeyer of the University of Calgary’s faculty of veterinary medicine, discusses how to manage an outbreak, protecting calves and people alike from this disease and how a bit of record keeping can […] Read more

Animal Health, Beef Cattle, Livestock, Scours

One Health strategies help farm family navigate outbreak

The Haraga family calls in the troops to deal with a nasty zoonotic disease

By Beef Cattle Research Council June 28, 2023

This article was originally published at beefresearch.ca. It is reprinted here with the permission of the Beef Cattle Research Council. For Tyler and Nancy Haraga, March 10, 2018, will forever stand out in their minds. “It was forty below with four to five feet of snow,” says Tyler. It had been a brutal winter, with […] Read more

A beef specialist with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach says producers should try to keep calving areas well drained.

Cow-Calf, Livestock, Scours, Vet advice

Fighting mud at calving season

Vet Advice with Dr. Ron Clarke

By Dr. Ron Clarke April 11, 2023

Muddy corrals in early spring are unacceptable for calving. Mud can be a sign of neglect or the unfortunate result of late spring snow storms severe enough to backfill crowded corrals to the point calves are trampled and smothered, or forced to live in the squalor of mud, cold and discomfort. Mud, if not managed […] Read more

Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts taken from a human. Producers dealing with a crypto outbreak should keep in mind that the parasite can infect both cattle and people.

Cow-Calf, Features, Livestock, Scours

Introducing outside calves heightens crypto risk

Cryptosporidium parvum is a disease that’s easy to introduce and hard to manage in a beef herd

By Melissa Jeffers-Bezan September 14, 2022

In the cold, wet pastures of a gruelling Manitoba spring near Oakville, Man., Garth McCormick needed a calf to put on one of his cows who had lost her calf, but didn’t have any he could use on his own farm. His hired man brought a calf from his own place to McCormick’s. Immediately, the […] Read more

A still from a Beef Cattle Research Council video on managing colostrum.

Beef Cattle, Calving, Cow-Calf, News Roundup, Scours

Calf 911: Managing colostrum so newborn calves thrive

By Beef Cattle Research Council February 23, 2022

Ensuring newborn calves consume colostrum is one of the most important management strategies cow-calf operations can implement to promote healthy calves. Colostrum provides essential antibodies (such as immunoglobulin G or IgG) to a calf with virtually no immune system. Colostrum also contains fats, vitamins, proteins and other immune cells essential to provide the calf energy, […] Read more

Checking for dehydration in a calf by performing a skin tent test.

Beef Cattle, Calving, Cow-Calf, News Roundup, Scours

Calf 911: How to spot dehydration in young or scouring calves

By Beef Cattle Research Council February 14, 2022

It’s a great feeling when a calf arrives on the ground safe and sound. Ideally, things go well, and cows and newborn calves thrive. However, it’s important for producers to take the time to look for signs of early illness in neonatal calves. Being able to recognize the symptoms of disease and dehydration in baby […] Read more

Cow-Calf, Features, Livestock, Scours

A tale of two calving systems

Confined and pasture methods each have risks and benefits

By Tara Mulhern Davidson January 13, 2021

For beef producers, calving season can be both stressful and enjoyable. Witnessing new life can be refreshing, but calving time is the most critical period in the cow-calf production cycle. Whether or not calving season is a success will set the tone for an operations’ entire year or longer, having an impact on animal health, […] Read more

Once a calf is lying flat and has a very weak or absent suckle reflex, it needs IV fluid.

Cow-Calf, Livestock, Scours

Scours in calves

Scours is a common illness in young calves. Understand the causes and effects of this disease to treat and prevent it

By Heather Smith Thomas March 18, 2020

Scours can be caused by certain kinds of bacteria, viruses or protozoa, but other factors come into play as well. “It’s often the interaction between the immune system, the environment and the pathogen load. The old saying is that the solution to pollution is dilution (or) minimizing the pathogen load,” says Dr. Paul Hardes, a […] Read more

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