Having a scours vaccine as part of your vaccination protocol is a valuable tool, but is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to managing and preventing scours! 

One of the main concerns associated with scours is dehydration – calves lose a lot of fluid in the stool and often are not sucking adequately to replace the lost fluid. Sometimes diarrhea is severe enough that calves cannot physically keep up with their fluid loss through oral supplementation. Diarrhea can cause imbalances in the calf’s pH and electrolytes which contribute to their symptoms. Furthermore, damage to the gut can increase the chance that bacteria can enter the calf’s system and cause a systemic infection/sepsis. 

If your calf is still bright and alert, capable of standing, and has a suckle reflex, you likely will be able to treat it on farm through a combination of milk supplementation and oral electrolyte solutions. 

Intravenous fluids become necessary when the clinical signs mentioned above are noticed. This is where we come in! We will hook up your calf to intravenous fluids to help replace the fluid that they have already lost and help return them to a normal fluid balance. A physical exam will also help us decide whether antibiotics or non-steroidal anti-inflammatories are necessary and will help us give you a prognosis for your calf. As mentioned above, sending a fecal sample (or tissue samples) will help us identify the underlying cause of the diarrhea. Depending on the state of your calf, we will decide whether additional supplementation, such as sugar/dextrose or bicarbonate is necessary. We will also give oral supplementation with milk so that your calf receives nutrition with added probiotics to help re-establish the normal balance in your calf’s gut.