Late-preterm delivery, lower initial umbilical artery pH (<7.25), and lower Apgar score at 1 min were independently associated with poor prognostic treatment outcomes in infants with TTN.

Bovine coronavirus (BCoV) is associated with severe diarrhea in calves, winter dysentery in adult cattle, and respiratory diseases in cattle of all ages. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between white blood cell counts and haptoglobin (Hp) and serum amyloid A (SAA) levels in post-weaned calves with diarrhea caused by BCoV and those that recovered from diarrhea. Blood and fecal samples were collected twice from the same animals; 17 post-weaned calves with diarrhea (first) and 15 post-weaned calves that recovered from diarrhea (second). Real-time polymerase chain reaction revealed that all 17 fecal samples from post-weaned calves with diarrhea and one out of 15 from diarrhea-recovered calves were positive for BCoV and negative for Cryptosporidium spp., Escherichia coli K99, Salmonella spp., bovine rotavirus, and bovine viral diarrhea virus. No Eimeria oocysts were detected using the flotation method. In comparison with post-weaned calves with diarrhea, in diarrhea-recovered calves, the lymphocyte count was significantly higher (P = 0.018), and the monocyte count was significantly lower (P = 0.001); however, the number of monocytes was still high. Post-weaned calves with diarrhea had a significantly higher Hp concentration (P < 0.001) compared with diarrhea-recovered calves. The results indicated that increased Hp concentration and monocytosis but not SAA may be associated with diarrhea caused by BCoV. The present study suggests that the monitoring of Hp concentration and monocyte count is useful in the diagnosis of post-weaned calves with diarrhea caused by BCoV in this field.

Diarrhea is reported as one of the most common diseases in calves. It is thought to be a major cause of productivity and economic loss to cattle producers. The aim of this study is to provide a better understanding of well-known diarrheagenic pathogens and incidence of diarrhea in Korean calves. In this study, the relationship of calf diarrhea and pathogens were investigated from calves under 60 days of age in five areas of Korea from April to July, 2016. Of examined fecal samples, 38.3% was positive for any pathogens, and Giardia was the most common pathogen (25.5%). The incidence of diarrhea was 31% from pathogen-negative fecal samples whereas 61.1% from pathogen-positive fecal samples, suggesting high correlation between pathogenic factor and diarrhea. In addition, 80% of E. coli (K99) positive calves showed diarrhea, suggesting E. coli (K99) could be highly pathogenic. The incidence of diarrhea and infection rate increased with age. Rotavirus was revealed as a major pathogen in calves under 20 days of age, and the infection rate of Giardia increased rapidly in calves 20 to 39 days of age. The information on interconnections between clinical diarrhea and pathogens would contribute to developing strategies for treatment of calf diarrhea.

Portable blood analyzers, which recently have been introduced to veterinary medicine, can facilitate immediate identification of sick calves in livestock farms. However, no appropriate standard values exist for neonatal calves; therefore, reference values for adult cattle guide diagnosis and treatment of newborn calves. Our goal was to determine electrolyte, blood chemistry, and blood gas values from healthy calves and compare them to those for diarrheic calves, thus providing useful information for diagnosis and prognosis. We evaluated 193 calves (£1 month old), including those with (n = 88) and without diarrhea (n = 105), using two-tailed, independent t tests after determining normality (Shapiro−Wilk test). Electrolyte measurements in the diarrheic calves included significant decreases in sodium and significant increases in potassium, chloride, and blood urea nitrogen. Strong ion difference (SID), pH, bicarbonate, partial pressure of carbon dioxide, and base excess (BE) were significantly lower in the diarrheic calves (p < 0.001); the anion gap (AG) was significantly higher among diarrheic calves aged 1-10 days (p < 0.001) compared to healthy calves. Our results demonstrate that SID, pH, bicarbonate, and BE correlated strongly with metabolic acidosis, suggesting that these indicators, including AG, can be important tools for evaluating calves’ health status and for providing useful information to diagnose diarrhea.