CALF CHOLERA.
—When a new-born calf comes into the world weak, puny, and listless, and dies in a few hours after scouring, bawling, and blatting and has sunken eyes and bloated belly soon after death, the disease by stockmen is called “calf cholera.” Many calves so affected are really “living abortions.” They have just enough life at birth to exist a few hours and show the symptoms described, and such calves are usually the offspring of cows that, during pregnancy, have been incompletely nourished upon timothy or swale hay, or coarse fodder, without an adequate supply of other foods to balance the ration; or similar calves may come from fat, flabby, corn-stuffed, beef-bred cows.
The trouble may be prevented by proper feeding of the pregnant cow, but there is no cure. A majority of such cases, however, are due to germ infection. Cows affected with contagious abortion may produce affected calves; the afterbirth and navel cord are invaded by the germs in such cases and the calf is improperly nourished in the womb. In other instances, calf cholera is due to filth germs entering the calf’s system by way of the raw navel cord stump at birth, or the mouth when the calf nurses from a manure-contaminated udder.
Prevent infective cases by providing a clean, fresh-bedded, disinfected, whitewashed, sunlighted, ventilated pen for the new-born calf, and immediately wet its navel with a 1⁄500 solution of corrosive sublimate and repeat the application twice daily until the cord dries up, drops off and no raw spot remains. Also wash the hind parts of the cow and her udder with a two per cent solution of coal tar disinfectant before the calf is allowed to suck for the first time and repeat the washing twice daily for at least a week. Isolate affected calves. Bury or burn the dead.