Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug therapy for neonatal calf diarrhea complex: Effects on calf performance

Todd, C. G.; Millman, S. T.; McKnight, D. R.; Duffield, T. F.; Leslie, K. E.

Differences in milk consumption between the MELand PLA-treated calves were observed only for those calves that developed diarrhea and were enrolled in the study after 10 d of age. This effect could have been due to differences in appetite development. However, Appleby et al. (2001) reported that calves fed ad libitum milk from artificial teats will often consume more than 7 L of milk per day during the first week of life. Thus, even though in the present study the calves were fed a restricted milk diet, it is likely that after the first few days of life, the calves had adapted to the whole milk diet and the mechanisms for sucking were developed. An alternative explanation is that the differences in milk consumption between the younger and older calves were a consequence of the causal agents of diarrhea. In this study, a larger percentage of calves that enrolled after 10 d of age had C. parvum isolated in their feces, whereas a greater number of younger calves had diarrhea associated with rotavirus or coronavirus (Todd, 2007) . The pathophysiology of cryptosporidiosis and viral diarrhea is different (Foster and Smith, 2009) , which could offer some insight into the calf age effects on milk consumption.