He believes that by saving a few dollars, rearers are dicing with death and risking calves’ lives.
“Time and time again I’ve seen people using these homebrews with absolutely disastrous consequences,” he said.
The problem is they pass these recipes on and while they might have got away with using them it only takes one mistake to have a dead calf or worse, numerous dead calves, he said.
People copy down recipes wrongly, they put the wrong dose of glucose or dextrose in or they put ordinary sugar in which will severely exacerbate the problem, often leading to the calf dying.
“Spend the money and get a licensed electrolyte specifically for calves,” he said.
That way, providing they followed the instructions closely, rearers could be confident the calf was getting the right amount of energy and fluid it desperately needed. It didn’t matter if the scours were nutritional or caused by disease, it was imperative they received sufficient fluid and energy.
That was likely to mean anywhere from six to10-plus litres of fluid a day.
To check how dehydrated a calf is, pinch the skin on their neck and twist it.
If the skin remains in a peak after it’s released the calf is probably about 5% dehydrated and will need up to 8l of fluid a day. If the twist remains then the calf is likely to be eight to10% or severely dehydrated and will need about 10l a day.
For a 40kg calf, 5% dehydration is equivalent to 2l of fluid but it needs 10-15% of its bodyweight as fluid just for maintenance, so another 4l, and loses another 2l as urine.
Schouten said he’s seen too many homemade electrolyte recipes where people might be giving the right volume of liquid but there just isn’t enough energy in it. He advised feeding scouring calves four times a day, alternating between 2l of electrolyte and 2l of milk with electrolyte available ad-lib over night.
Calves that are severely dehydrated might need tubing to ensure enough electrolyte is taken on board.
Feeding the electrolytes hot (35-40C) will encourage the voluntary intake of the extra fluids and help to correct the body core temperature, acidosis, and restore the blood glucose levels.
“So the first thing to do is to offer them a well-balanced electrolyte with enough salts and energy, and the second thing is to give enough to correct the energy, salts and fluid balance,” he said.
“Be aggressive (generous) and the results are very good. With good therapy and nursing, 97% of the calves will recover without any other veterinary treatment.”
Schouten said it was important to maintain the milk offering as closely as possible to the pre-scouring offering.
“Never remove all the milk from the diet for more then 12 hours or the calf will slowly starve to death. Even just 2l of hot milk will meet half the daily energy of the calf. The electrolyte volume should then replace the other amount required.”
