Calf scour remains highly prevalent in UK herds causing not just immediate short-term problems, but also significant negative downstream effects in later years on weight gain and milk yield. Animal welfare problems are also an issue. Calf scour should be viewed as a herd problem, and one clinically affected calf can subclinically affect five others. Recent surveys have shown that around 82% of farmers experienced calf scour in their herds in a 12 month period and of those 48% had calf deaths as a result of scour. Not only is there short-term damage and financial loss with scouring calves, but scour or respiratory disease have been clearly demonstrated to impact negatively on future performance. Accordingly, reducing calf scour at the preweaning stage can go a long way to benefitting future milk production and productivity in the long term. It should be noted that calf pneumonia incidence is also closely linked to calf scour incidence with scouring calves being up to 20 times more susceptible to pneumonia. Conversely, calves with a higher average daily gains pre-weaning have been shown to be heavier and produce more milk when they mature.
Dual problems of high environmental contamination and low immunity in the calf underpin the calf scour problem. Surveys of calves have shown that only 30–40% of calves receive adequate colostrum from birth in terms of quality and quantity. Probiotics can enhance immunity in young calves when given from birth. Stimulating a healthy gut and also the immune system of a young calf, via enrichment of the gut microorganisms by a proven probiotic is a major way of helping the calf to help itself. This obviates the necessity of resorting to fire brigade antibiotic therapy to treat scour outbreaks since recent research (Soberon et al, 2012; Van Amburgh et al, 2014) has shown that calves that received antibiotic therapy pre-weaning had less milk production in their first lactation. Therefore, prevention from birth is better than cure.
Augmenting immunity and a healthy gut microbiome from birth with a proven probiotic is now known to be at least as effective as antibiotics in preventing this problem (Barragry, 1997; Frizzoa, 2011). The clinical expert report on Provita Protect stated: ‘From the results of all trials, Provita Protect was at least as effective as antibiotics in scouring calves (together with electrolytes).’
Provita Protect POM-VPS optimises the gut microbiome which we now know to be the director, not only of gut health, but also of overall immunity in the body. This ‘cross talk’ between the gut and the lungs confers less respiratory disease as a result of an enhanced healthy gut. This recent scientific evidence clearly underpins why in the Provita Protect field trials, the treated calves displayed not only a lower incidence of scour (83% less) and increased weight gains (10%), but also a lower incidence of respiratory disease (70% less) (Provita, n.d.).
Provita Protect is the only veterinary probiotic to be authorised and licensed by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD). Copious clinical trial data, veterinary expert reports and proof of efficacy were submitted in large master file dossiers to the regulatory authorities in order to acquire this valued authorisation. In other words, Provita Protect uniquely is a proven animal probiotic product, and is thus clearly set apart from most other probiotics in the veterinary marketplace.
Amongst the key findings in the field trials with Provita Protect in young calves were the following:
- Less incidence of scour in calves treated with Provita Protect
- Less incidence of respiratory disease in calves treated with Provita Protect
- Provita Protect was at least as effective as antibiotics in scouring calves (together with electrolytes)
- Calves were heavier at weaning once they had received Provita Protect
- Over 400 calves were used in various field trials and the aggregate weights of Provita treated calves showed an almost 10% liveweight gain increase over untreated controls.
This talk formed part of UK-Vet Healthy Herd conference and was sponsored by Provita. The talk can be viewed on demand at https://www.ukvethealthyherd.com