I now view the common risk factors for disease – such as failure of passive transfer, dirty facilities and feeding equipment, cold stress and poor nutrition – as symptoms of a lack of proactive, structured monitoring programs designed to track protocol compliance as well as calf performance.

When trying to understand the impact scours can have, producers often overlook many variables, including what happens to a calf that got sick but recovered.

In early 2015, a disease outbreak affected people in Wisconsin and several other states. Of those sickened, nearly half were young children and most reported direct contact with cattle, primarily dairy calves.

That newborn calf looks pretty helpless nestled down in that clean, fresh straw. But don’t let looks deceive. She’s a powerhouse of genetics and opportunity just waiting to demonstrate her potential.

In recent years, dairy producers and industry experts have put more emphasis on providing dairy calves with high-quality, timely colostrum to maximize passive transfer of immunity.

Due to improvements in reproductive efficiencies, dairies can now be more selective in raising future herd replacements. This elevates the importance of reducing preventable diseases such as scours or diarrhea in newborn calves.

Mycoplasma bovis is a bacterium lacking a cell wall, which causes it to be resistant to beta-lactam antibiotics (penicillin, ampicillin, cephalosporins). Its unique metabolism also makes it resistant to sulpha drugs.

If we go back 10-plus years, most dairy farms bred all their cows and heifers for dairy calves and raised all heifer calves as dairy herd replacements.