Causative agents and epidemiology of diarrhea in Korean native calves

Lee, Sung-Hwan; Kim, Ha-Young; Choi, Eun Wha; Kim, Doo

Statistical evaluations were performed with the SPSS (IBM SPSS Statistics, Desktop Base, v22.0; IBM Corporation, USA) software. Prevalence of causative agents was detected in diarrheal calves divided into eight age groups as follows: < 1 week old, 1-2 weeks old, 3-4 weeks old, 5-6 weeks old, 7-8 weeks old, 9-10 weeks old, 11-12 weeks old, and ≥ 13 weeks old. Seasons were grouped as spring (March-May), summer (June-August), fall (September-November), and winter (December-February) [34] . Diarrhea was classified as pasty, watery, mucous, or hemorrhagic. The degree of Eimeria spp. infection was determined on the basis of oocyst per gram of feces (OPG) as follows: light infection (OPG 1), OPG < 1,000; moderate infection (OPG 2), 1,000 ≤ OPG < 10,000; and heavy infection (OPG 3), OPG ≥10,000 [35] . A chi-square test was used to analyse the differences in the prevalence of diarrhea caused by each causative agent and the onset ages as well as seasons. A value of p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.