Warm weather worries ranchers

Calving season is just starting, but with the above average temperatures some are worried about their grazing fields getting wet and muddy.

“If you have a warm spell or a wet warm spell, there is an increased chance of scours and scours can spell disaster for a lot of ranchers, and they can stand to lose quite a bit of money,” says Lance Ellis of the University of Idaho.

Scours is essentially a severe case of diarrhea for calves. When they’re born, calves tend to stick their mouths where they shouldn’t, drinking manure contaminated water. During a normal winter, the ground is usually frozen enough to make this less of a problem. In warmer winter the ground can thaw, creating more puddles and more chances for a calf to get sick.

Ranchers like Lee Munns say they do what they can to give the calves a healthy start. “We usually pull the heavies (pregnant mother cows) off and put them in a corral,” says Munns. There’s plenty of straw to help the new calves to get a good start in life, he says.

If a cow does get sick, ranchers have several options, including pills and vaccines to help them get healthy. The problem is many of those medicines are expensive. With some ranchers having several hundred heads of cattle, an outbreak of the scours can cost a rancher thousands of dollars.

“If you can prevent the scours, it’s just money in your pocket,” says Munns.