We often benchmark the success or failure of a health plan on the mortality figure. Obviously, keeping calves alive means you are doing something right. However, mortality alone is not a good measure of how good a health programme is. The most expensive loss in these systems is often a hidden cost – the loss of production when a calf is sick.

If scour or pneumonia goes through a batch of calves for a week or 10 days it could reduce growth rates by more than half in that period. Taking this across a batch of 20 calves over a 10 day period, the loss of production could cost you over €250 in potential liveweight gain alone, before any vet or medicine costs are included.

This is assuming there are no long-term effects of the illness, for example, a calf with bad pneumonia may have irreparable damage to the lungs that will limit their daily liveweight gain performance for life.

Prevention is better than cure

Early intervention is key with calf rearing and this is where attention to detail will pay off. With careful and frequent observation of the calves, potential outbreaks of scour and pneumonia can be identified the day before they occur – minimising the overall negative effect on the group.

Early signs of calf sickness include:

• Slow to or refuses to drink milk.

• Spending more time lying down when rest of the group are active.

• Forcing hard to make manure.

• Dry or firm dung.

• Dry muzzle or nasal discharge.

•Temperature over 39.5°C.

Minimising stress

Anything that stresses the calf can lower the immune system and provide the opportunity for disease to set in.

Calves like routine. Feeds should be kept at the same time every day. If you feed at 7am this morning and 9am tomorrow morning then the calf will have spent the two hours waiting for its feed. While it may seem a small, consistency is key.

Water

Calves should have free access to fresh, clean water at all times. It's important to ensure the water trough at the correct height? If you are rearing calves in a shed that has been designed for cows or finishing stock then the water trough height will need adjusting. If not you will compromise water intake.

Hygiene

While straw may be expensive, the calf rearing shed is not a place to skimp or cut corners. Keeping calves in as clean, dry and comfortable an environment as possible is the single biggest thing you can do to minimise the disease risk in the calf shed.

What about your own boots and clothes?

Are you going from the cow shed or the lambing pens into the calf shed without washing your boots or waterproofs? If so what bugs are you dragging in with you?

Having a foot dip outside the calf shed is a quick and easy way to minimise the risk of carrying something unwanted into the calves’ environment. Clean it out regularly and keep it topped up with disinfectant between cleanings.

Act fast

If a disease outbreak does occur, it is essential that the necessary steps are taken to ensure it is treated effectively, prevented from spreading and that preventative action is taken in subsequent years. For this to happen it is essential that you identify what the problem is. This can only be achieved by having any disease/scour outbreak investigated. It is essential that you take dung samples from infected calves at the early stages of a scour outbreak. A delay in taking the sample will make accurate diagnosis difficult as multiple infections may be present.