Both calves were doing really good at first. As soon as One got sick, Two got sick. It was a never ending battle with sickness. Most of the time it was scours. Scours is a type of sickness that happens in young calves. It is diarrhea and inflammation of the intestinal tract. We usually see it in calves that are any where from 3-16 days of life - for most cases. Just like people, a baby calf can get really weak really fast if nothing is being absorbed in the intestines. Calves have a high risk of dying from scours if not treated. John and I were pretty prepared with scours tablets and electrolytes. Sometimes though, because they were born in a feedlot with hardly any colostrum, feedlot calves just get sick. Mainly because the passive immunity, passed from mother to calf is not as strong. Because of this, their active immunity when they are older will be so much stronger because they had to fight off all the illinesses. One had to go to the vet and we had to inject probiotics into both calves to improve their immune systems. For awhile our cabinet looked like a calf medicine chest!
The calves had to be separated to help prevent the spread of infection between them.