A new calf-side scour testing service is helping cattle vets to more quickly assess any involvement of common infectious agents and improve disease management approaches on farm. Individual farm results are also being assimilated to develop a better understanding of the national disease picture.
Intervet/Schering Plough Animal Health has now launched ScourCheck - a new subsidised diagnostic scheme to sit alongside its DairyCheck and BeefCheck milk and blood testing services. ScourCheck allows a farmer’s vet to use a simple calf-side faecal testing kit to quickly detect whether rotavirus, cryptosporidia, coronavirus or E.coli K99 are present in any samples taken from scouring calves.
According to Intervet/Schering-Plough livestock veterinary adviser Paul Williams MRCVS, feedback from vets in practice and their clients has been excellent. "Both parties really value the ability in many cases to make an instant diagnosis of scour problems. And by collecting all the data from practices using the new kits we are able to analyse the key disease threats," he says.
"Since we started sending out the kits in the spring, data has already been collected from 172 farms (99 dairy units and 67 suckler herds). The results are pretty consistent with other national diagnostic data and show rotavirus being the most common infectious agent, detected in 37% of samples. Cryptosporidia was found in 30% of samples, coronavirus in 28% and E.coli K99 in 5%."
Paul Williams says that whilst rotavirus remains the leading cause of infectious scour problems, cryptosporidia is definitely being picked up more and more. "Scours caused by the protozoan parasite Cryptosporidium parvum do seem to be becoming more prevalent, particularly in calves between one and two weeks of age. The benefit of the calf-side test is that if it is picked up in scour samples, treatment with Halocur can begin immediately rather than waiting for a few days for laboratory results. And the earlier you are able to start treatment, the more you are able to limit the impact of the disease.
"If rotavirus, coronavirus or E.coli K99 are implicated then the merits of a Rotavec-Corona vaccination programme can be discussed."
Paul Williams points out that calf scour is very much a herd problem. "The sheer prevalence of the infectious agents in the farm environment and the ease with which they spread from the calf means it is vital to keep disease prevention programmes under constant review. One of the best ways of doing this is that if you see a few scouring calves, ask your vet to take faecal samples. Once you know what you are dealing with it’s much easier to implement the right management approaches and cut the costs of the disease."
Farmers interested in benefitting from the new calf-side calf faecal sample testing service should contact their veterinary surgeon.
