Andrea Debenham
Andrea Debenham milks 400 Friesians on the family farm in Beccles, Suffolk which is owned in partnership by her Mother and Uncle, Margaret Vale and David Burroughs. The farm is approximately 400ha and they also have free range poultry.
Calf scour isn’t a big issue on our farm, however we do tend to get about three to five bad cases a year.
“Scouring calves can be hugely inconvenient and time-consuming as not only do we have to separate the animals from the rest of the herd, but we have to invest a lot of time in managing the condition as the calves don’t grow as well and take a lot more effort to catch up.”
“Our vet recommended that we use Rehydion for scouring calves and we have used it successfully alongside milk for six or seven years. We have a mantra that ‘you can never really over-hydrate’ and we find that Rehydion works quickly and is easy to administer. If you can get a good first feed into a calf then it picks up really well and after a second feed then it would normally be ‘getting there’.
“If I could give one piece of advice to farmers with scouring calves it would be administer Rehydion alongside milk.”