A mystery disease killing dairy calves in Ireland and the UK has been highlighted as a serious concern to the vet community, with new protocols introduced across regional veterinary laboratories (RVLs).

Symptoms of the disease include severe, rapid onset of diarrhoea and weight loss in weaned dairy calves up to 12 months old at grass.

It usually occurs within one month of turnout to grass.

The Department of Agriculture said that there were high rates of sickness, but only 20 deaths had been officially recorded this year due to the difficulty in diagnosing the illness.

Exclusion

“As there is no definitive diagnosis at present, it is a diagnosis by exclusion of other common problems such as coccidiosis, parasitic gastroenteritis, copper deficiency, etc,” the Department said.

The XL Vets journal, Livestock Matters, recorded that the disease has been called a number of names, including “Fading Calf Syndrome”, “Calves at Grass Syndrome” and “Calf Summer Scour Syndrome”.

Vet Donal Murphy wrote that “some calves, if they recover, will always lag far behind their comrades in terms of growth rates.”