What Causes Calf Scours?
This is an important question and one that should be addressed early in the process. The potential causes of calf scours are a fairly long list of viruses, bacteria, and protozoal agents. However, in most cases there are only four bugs that cause the vast majority of our scours problems in beef calves. These common agents are: 1) E. coli – a bacterial agent that usually causes illness within the first few days of lifetypically before 5 days of age. 2) Rota virus Rota virus and Corona virus are viral agents and they cause disease at 10 days to 21 days of life 3) Corona virus note above. 4) Cryptosporidium.. Cryptosporidium (C. parvum) is a protozoal agent and also usually causes scours at 10 to 21 days. In beef calves, a combined infection with Rota virus and Cryptosporidium is very common. All of these infectious agents can be common in beef herds and in the environment. Each of these bugs act in its unique way to cause diarrhea in calves and the diarrhea results in dehydration, electr
