6 Best Calf Scours Treatments For Small Dairy Farms That Old-Timers Trust
Combat calf scours with wisdom from old-timers. This guide covers 6 trusted treatments, from essential electrolytes to practical, farm-tested remedies.
Nothing sinks your heart faster than walking into the barn to find a newborn calf looking listless, with its backside caked in runny manure. Calf scours, or diarrhea, is more than just a messy inconvenience; it’s the number one killer of calves in their first month of life. For a small dairy farm where every animal counts, losing a calf is a financial and emotional blow that you can’t afford. Having a clear, trusted plan of action is the difference between a quick recovery and a devastating loss.
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First Steps: Identifying Calf Scours on Your Farm
The first sign of scours is obvious: loose, watery manure that can range in color from yellow to white or even bloody. But don’t just look at the calf’s tail. Look at the calf itself. Is it lethargic and slow to get up? Does it lack the normal suckle reflex when you offer a finger? These are red flags.
The real danger of scours isn’t the diarrhea; it’s the rapid dehydration that follows. A calf can lose a dangerous amount of fluid in just a few hours. Check for dehydration by pinching the skin on its neck and seeing how long it takes to flatten back down. If it stays tented for more than a couple of seconds, you have a seriously dehydrated calf on your hands. Sunken eyes are another classic, and very serious, sign.
Before you do anything else, isolate the sick calf immediately. Scours pathogens spread like wildfire through a herd, and moving the sick animal to a clean, dry, and separate pen is your first and most critical act of biosecurity. Take its temperature, too. A normal calf temperature is around 101.5°F (38.6°C); a fever can point toward a bacterial infection that may require a different course of action.
Sav-A-Caf Electrolytes: The First Line of Defense
When a calf has scours, your first priority is hydration. Forget everything else for a moment and focus on getting fluids and essential minerals back into its system. This is where a high-quality powdered electrolyte, like Sav-A-Caf, becomes the most important tool in your barn. It’s designed to replace the water, sodium, potassium, and energy that the calf is losing with every bowel movement.
The key is to administer electrolytes between milk feedings, not with them. Mixing electrolytes into milk or milk replacer can disrupt the formation of the milk curd in the abomasum (the true stomach), making digestion worse. A good rule of thumb is to offer a full feeding of electrolytes two to three hours after a milk feeding.
If the calf is too weak to drink from a bottle, you must use an esophageal tube feeder. This can feel intimidating at first, but it’s a non-negotiable skill for any cattle owner. Learning to tube a calf properly ensures you can deliver life-saving fluids directly into its stomach, even when it has given up on drinking. Without electrolytes, even the best treatments will fail.
Probios Bovine One Gel for Gut Health Restoration
Scours is like a flash flood that washes away the entire ecosystem of a calf’s gut. It flushes out not just the bad bacteria but all the good bacteria, too. Once you’ve addressed dehydration, the next step is to help the calf rebuild that healthy gut flora, and a probiotic gel like Probios is a simple and effective way to do it.
Think of probiotics as sending in reinforcements. The gel contains a concentrated dose of beneficial live microorganisms that help recolonize the gut, crowd out harmful pathogens, and restore the digestive system’s natural balance. A healthy gut microbiome is essential for proper nutrient absorption and for building a strong immune system to fight off the infection.
The beauty of a product like Probios gel is its ease of use. It comes in a large syringe, and you simply dial in the correct dose and squirt it into the back of the calf’s mouth. There’s no mixing powders or wrestling with a weak calf to drink something else. It’s a quick, low-stress way to support the calf’s long-term recovery.
Kaolin Pectin: A Classic Stomach-Soothing Remedy
Sometimes, the old ways stick around for a reason. Kaolin Pectin is a classic, over-the-counter remedy that functions much like Kaopectate does for humans. It’s not a cure, but it provides significant supportive care by soothing an inflamed and irritated digestive tract. It’s a go-to for many old-timers dealing with a mild case or a calf on the mend.
The treatment works in two ways. The kaolin is a type of clay that acts as an adsorbent, meaning it binds to toxins and bacteria in the gut so they can be passed out of the body. The pectin, a soluble fiber, helps to absorb excess water in the intestine, which can help firm up the stool and slow the rate of fluid loss.
This isn’t your heavy hitter for a severe, raging case of scours caused by a nasty bacterial infection. But for a simple case of nutritional scours (caused by a feeding change) or as a follow-up treatment after the worst has passed, it’s an excellent, gentle tool. It helps make the calf more comfortable and reduces the strain on its system while it recovers.
Terramycin Scour Tablets for Bacterial Infections
Not all scours are created equal. If a calf has a high fever, appears to be in pain, or you see blood or mucus in the manure, you are likely dealing with a bacterial infection like E. coli or Salmonella. In this situation, supportive care alone may not be enough. This is when an antibiotic like Terramycin Scour Tablets becomes a necessary part of your toolkit.
Terramycin is a brand name for oxytetracycline, a broad-spectrum antibiotic that is effective against many of the common bacteria that cause scours. These come in a bolus, which is a large pill that you administer with a tool called a bolus gun. It’s a targeted treatment meant to attack the root cause of the infection, not just the symptoms.
A word of caution: do not reach for antibiotics for every case of scours. Many cases are caused by viruses or nutritional issues, where antibiotics are completely useless and can do more harm than good by killing off beneficial gut bacteria. Overusing them also contributes to antibiotic resistance. Reserve them for cases where you strongly suspect a bacterial cause, and always consult your vet if you’re unsure.
The ‘Skip-A-Feeding’ Milk Management Method
You’ll often hear the old advice to "rest the gut" by skipping one or two milk feedings entirely, providing only electrolytes. The logic was that milk feeds the bad bugs and irritates the digestive system. While well-intentioned, this approach is now largely considered outdated. A sick calf is fighting for its life and needs every bit of energy it can get. Milk is its primary source of calories.
Withholding food from a sick animal can weaken it further, making it harder for its immune system to mount a defense. A starving calf is a weak calf, and a weak calf is more likely to succumb to the illness. The goal should be to support the calf with energy while managing the digestive upset.
A better, more modern approach is to modify the feeding schedule rather than eliminating it. Instead of a full two-quart feeding, try offering just one quart of milk. A few hours later, give a full feeding of electrolytes. A few hours after that, offer another one-quart milk feeding. This provides a steady stream of calories without overwhelming the compromised gut, giving the calf the energy it needs to recover.
Homemade Slippery Elm Gruel for Gentle Recovery
For the calf that is over the worst of it but still has a sensitive gut and a poor appetite, a homemade slippery elm gruel is a fantastic traditional remedy. Slippery elm bark powder, when mixed with water, forms a slick, gelatinous substance called mucilage. This gruel gently coats the entire digestive tract, soothing inflammation and providing a protective layer over irritated tissues.
Making it is simple. Just whisk a tablespoon or two of slippery elm bark powder into a pint of warm water until it forms a thin, smooth gruel. You can offer it in a bottle or, if the calf won’t suckle, administer it slowly with a drenching syringe. It’s palatable and easy to digest.
This isn’t a treatment for the acute, life-threatening phase of scours. It doesn’t provide the critical electrolytes or calories of a full milk feeding. Instead, think of it as a recovery aid. It helps ease the transition back to a full diet, calms the gut, and can help stimulate a lagging appetite, making it a valuable tool for the final stages of healing.
Preventing Future Scours Outbreaks in Your Herd
Treating a sick calf is stressful and time-consuming. The real goal is to never have to treat one in the first place. Prevention is all about management, and it starts before the calf is even born with a clean, dry calving area. Once the calf hits the ground, your prevention checklist should be simple but non-negotiable.
First and foremost is colostrum. A calf is born with no immunity, and that "first milk" is packed with the mother’s antibodies. Ensuring a calf gets at least two quarts of high-quality colostrum within the first four hours of life is the single most important thing you can do to prevent scours. This cannot be overstated. After that, focus on impeccable sanitation. All bottles, nipples, buckets, and tube feeders must be scrubbed and sanitized after every single use.
Finally, consistency is key. Calves thrive on routine. Feed them at the same times each day with milk replacer mixed to the same concentration and warmed to the same temperature (around 102°F or 39°C). Avoid overcrowding, which increases stress and the concentration of pathogens in the environment. An ounce of prevention here is truly worth a pound of cure, saving you time, money, and the heartache of a sick animal.
A successful scours plan is about acting fast with the right tools in the right order. It starts with aggressive rehydration, followed by supporting the gut’s recovery and, only when necessary, using targeted medication. Having electrolytes, probiotics, and a few other key remedies on hand before you see that first sign of trouble is what separates a prepared farmer from a panicked one.
