Calves with Sam

Our Dairy Does Not Have

Cryptosporidum or Giardia!

In 2014 the National Animal Health Monitoring System completed a calf study involving 104 dairy operations in 13 states. This was an 18-month longitudinal study involving 2,545 heifer calves. Holstein calves made up 89% of the population. By herd size, the study included:

• Small (30-99cows)            20%
• Medium (100-499 cows)   32%
• Large (500+ cows)            48%
• 
  

They did fecal testing to determine the presence of both Cryptosporidium and Giardia.

Do you really believe that your dairy does not have either of these parasites?

Guess again. Presence was - percentage of farms with parasite present:

94% Cryptosporium

99% Giardia

Or, on the basis of calves that were fecal sampled, percentage of calves with parasite present:

43% Cryptosporidium

30% Giardia

Important to note - these were not clinical cases of infection. These laboratory results were just presence/absence of parasites.

Reference: Urie, N.J. and Others "Preweaned heifer management on US dairy operatons: Part 3. Factors associated with Cryptosporidium and Giardia in preweaned dairy heifer calves." Journal of Dairy Science 101:9199-9213 October 2018.

If there are clinical symptoms here are a two basic resources on these parasites.

• click  HERE for basic resource on Cryptosporidium - or this is the URL http://atticacows.com/library/newsletters/CryptosporidiumparvumN18125_1.pdf

• click HERE for basic resource on Girardia - or this is the URL http://atticacows.com/library/newsletters/GiardiaUKR17108.pdf