determination of the fecal macro-mineral concentrations and their relationships to serum and milk consumed parameters in diarrheic neonatal holstein dairy calves

idiarrhea is known as the current and economic disease among new born calves. it is characterized by dehydration, loss of macro-minerals, weakness, recumbency and death. in calves diarrhea with different etiology, loss of liquid and electrolytes are the principle signs and the cause of death too. therefore, determination of the amounts of liquid and mainly electrolytes depletion is important in the prognosis of disease. for this reason fecal, blood and milk consumption samples from 34 diarrheic and 10 healthy calves were collected to investigate, 1) the fecal ph, specific gravity (sg), protein, dry matter (dm) and hematocrit (pcv), 2) the macro-mineral concentrations in samples and comparison between diarrheic and healthy calves, 3) the  interrelationships among macro-minerals in fecal, blood and milk samples, and finally 4) the sequence and importance of macro-minerals leave by diarrheic feces in urmia, iran. mean pcv in diarrheic calves was higher than healthy calves (p<0.01). mean dm (p<0.01), protein (p<0.01) and ph in diarrheic calves were lower than healthy calves. mean sg of feces in diarrheic calves was 1.015 and dm in diarrheic calves was 2.46 times less than healthy calves. mean serum macro-mineral concentrations in diarrheic calves was less than healthy calves (p<0.05). there was no different in milk serum macro-mineral concentrations between diarrheic and healthy calves. the highest and lowest percent of fecal k and na was found in diarrheic calves, respectively. mean comparison of the fecal and milk serum macro-mineral concentrations between diarrheic and healthy calves were also different (p<0.05). the minimum values were found in diarrheic calves and the maximum in healthy calves. the results of correlations between serum and fecal macro-minerals in diarrheic calves were lower than in healthy calves. there was no correlations between fecal and milk serum macro-minerals in diarrheic and healthy calves. fecal and blood na showed correlation with the majority of macro-minerals. thus, it is concluded that fecal excretion of macro-minerals mainly na in diarrheic calves is remain important and must be compensate together with fluid therapy in diarrheic calves.