Six chances for cattle farmers to win calf crush

Cattle farmers have six opportunities to win a calf crate from this month until end-July. All they have to do is answer a few questions in a Janssen Animal Health survey about their experiences with the costly, debilitating disease coccidiosis.

Information from the survey will help to give the company a clearer picture of the incidence of the disease plus the key factors that can trigger increased calf stress and a coccidiosis outbreak.

Says the company's Nick Burford: "The answers will help to give us a better understanding of the disease and how it is being treated on beef and dairy farms throughout the UK. It will help our treatment advice to farmers to overcome any unusual challenges that become evident."

Farmers can get a survey form from their animal health supplier, their Janssen Animal Health territorial manager, or the company: telephone 01494 567555, fax 01494 567556 or email ahealth@jacgb.jnj.com. "Every month all returns will be entered into a draw with respondents having the opportunity to win a calf crush," says Nick Burford.

Cocci is one of the most common causes of diarrhoea in calves. The disease is caused by calves picking up oocysts (eggs) of a single-cell parasite, Eimeria, shed into the housing environment or onto pasture in the dung of previously infected animals.

The infection destroys millions of cells in the gut lining, which can severely reduce the animal's ability to absorb food and cut growth rates by as much as 20 per cent. Most economic loss comes from calves showing no visible signs of the disease.

A single dose of the oral drench Vecoxan™ given about two weeks after a significant oocyst challenge (usually associated with a period of stress) has been shown to prevent the disease and to cut oocyst production by 98 per cent. This dramatically reducies the ongoing contamination of pasture and bedding.

Vecoxan is a POM-VPS medicine with the active ingredient diclazuril, and is available from veterinary surgeons and authorised merchants. It is the only anticoccidial drench licensed for use in beef and dairy calves of any age or weight, indoors or at pasture.