The occurrence of diseases and their relationship with passive immune transfer in Holstein dairy calves submitted to individual management in southern Brazil

Abstract

Calves are extremely dependent on colostrum intake for the acquisition of passive immunity. This study aimed to determine the occurrence of diarrhea and respiratory diseases and the impact of Failure of Passive Immune Transfer (FPIT) on the health and zootechnical performance of Holstein dairy calves in individual management. This study has been carried out in five commercial farms in Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil, from March 2017 to January 2018. In this study, 131 calves were followed from birth to 60 days of age. Total Plasmatic Protein (TPP) has been performed to determine passive immune transfer quality in 53 calves (53/131). A daily clinical follow-up has been accomplished aiming at diagnosing diseases and their incidences, and zootechnical measures such as withers height, width of the croup and weight have been evaluated. FPIT rate was 32.07%, diarrhea occurrence and respiratory diseases were 77.9% and 49.6%, respectively. FPIT increased the chances of calves presenting diarrhea and developing respiratory diseases, but no differences on zootechnical performance were found. The frequency of FPIT is still high and is a factor that corroborated the increased risk for diarrhea and respiratory disease but did not influence the performance of calves in the preweaning phase.

High Birth Weight Increases the Chance of Mortality in Girolando Calves 2 Conceived Through in Vitro Fertilization

“…In this study, there was no difference between groups in the percentage of animals that presented FPIT and, therefore, the highest number of deaths in heavy calves cannot be credited to this. Over the 80 days of the study, we found diarrhea morbidity of 77%, very similar to those 77.9% reported by Weiller et al (2020). The results are within the expected for the Brazilian reality (53.6-100%) (Langoni et al, 2004).…”

Effect of Time and Amount of Colostrum Feeding on Physiological Parameters and Health Scores in Surti Buffalo Calves

“…Similar to present findings Priestley et al (2013) also used health scoring system for studying failure of passive transfer in calves and they reported increased (P<0.03) morbidity and mortality in groups of calves with FTP as compared to calves without failure of passive transfer. Weiller et al (2020) showed that diarrhoea and respiratory diseases were 77.9% and 49.6%, respectively in calves with FTP. Dunn et al (2017) revealed higher incidences of enteritis in calves fed less colostrum i.e.…”

“…Any impairment in it leads to failure in transfer of passive immunity (FTP). FTP is associated with higher occurrence of diarrhoea, pneumonia, naval ill, high morbidity and mortality (Dunn et al, 2017 andWeiller et al, 2020). Health status and chances of survival of neonatal calves is affected by one of the most important management aspect of early and sufficient intake of high quality colostrum (Godden et al, 2019).…”