Group housing of preweaned dairy calves is a growing practice in the United States. The objective of this practice is to increase the average daily gain of calves in a healthy and humane environment while reducing labor requirements. However, feeding protocols, commingling of calves, and occurrence of disease in different calf-housing systems may affect the prevalence of antimicrobial drug-resi...

Prophylactic and therapeutic antimicrobial use in food animals is questioned because of the potential for development of resistant bacteria and future inability to use some antimicrobials for human or animal disease. The objectives of this study were to determine the effect of raising preweaned dairy calves without antimicrobials in the milk and minimizing therapeutic antimicrobial treatment on...

This study was carried out to investigate neonatal calf mortality (NCM) in 864 Nili-Ravi buffalo calves born during 1993-2000 at the Livestock Production Research Institute (LPRI), Bahadurnagar, Okara, Pakistan. The overall mortality in buffalo neonates was 9.4%. The NCM in relation to birth weight, sex and age of neonatal calf showed non-significant difference. The highest mortality was record...

Isolation, Molecular Identification, and Antibiotic Resistance Profile of Salmonella Typhimurium Isolated from Calves Fecal Samples Dairy Farms in Hamedan

The objectives of the current research were to determine the effect of weaning on fecal shedding of Salmonella and Escherichia coli O157:H7 in dairy calves and to examine cultured isolates (to include Enterococcus) for antimicrobial susceptibility. This research was conducted on one large commercial dairy (>3000 head) in the southwestern United States. Two collections were made, during the wint...

There is growing interest among the public in farm animal welfare and a need for methods to assess animal welfare on farm. A survey on calf rearing practices that might affect dairy calf welfare was performed via a 1-h interview on 115 dairy farms (mean +/- SD: herd size=52.5+/-20.9 cows; milk production=8,697+/-1,153L) distributed throughout the province of Quebec. Despite frequent recommendat...

The prevalence of Cryptosporidium in calves younger than 10 weeks was estimated in a cross-sectional epidemiological study on 100 dairy (n=499) and 50 beef (n=333) farms in East Flanders (Belgium), using a previously evaluated immunofluorescence assay (Merifluor). The calf prevalence was 37% (95% Probability Interval (PI): 7-70%) in dairy calves and 12% (95% PI: 1-30%) in beef calves. To elucid...

The effect of diet on changes in plasma thyroxine levels was studied in 83 newborn Friesian X Holstein calves. Fifty-four received four copious meals of first-milking colostrum at 4, 10, 16 and 22 neonatal hours. At the same time, 24 animals received four meals of a solution of colostrum immunoglobulins containing little energy, and 5 calves were kept fasted. The last two treatments resulted in...

Before discussing the current state of fluid therapy it is appropriate to recognize how advances in fluid therapy have improved the outcome for calves. Over the past 30 years a number of surveys have determined the prevalence of morbidity and mortality from diarrhea in neonatal calves in the western Canada. These surveys used slightly different methodology so they are not strictly comparable. H...

The purpose of this study was to investigate possible alterations in acid-base balance parameters and the coagulation profile in neonatal diarrheic calves. Twenty neonatal diarrheic and 20 clinically healthy neonatal calves aged between 1 week to 10 days were used. All blood samples were taken on the third day from the onset of diarrhea symptom. Venous blood samples were collected from each ani...