Prevalence of bovine group A rotavirus shedding among dairy calves in Ohio

Fecal samples were collected from 450 neonatal calves, ranging from 1 to 30 days old, between May, 1988 and May, 1989 to estimate the prevalence of bovine group A rotavirus in a stratified random sample of Ohio dairy herds. Calves were from 47 dairy herds chosen to be representative of Ohio herds. Bovine group A rotavirus was detected in fecal samples by a cell culture immunofluorescence test (CCIF) and ELISA. Of 450 samples tested, 46 (10%) were positive by CCIF and 67 (15%) were positive by ELISA. The agreement beyond chance between the 2 assays was good (kappa = 0.65). The overall prevalence rate of rotavirus shedding was 16.4% (74/450). Forty-three percent (29/67) of the samples positive by ELISA were subgroup 1, none were subgroup 2, and the remaining 57% (38/67) could not be assigned to either subgroups 1 or 2. Thirty herds (62.5%) had at least 1 group A rotavirus-positive calf (mean number of samples per positive herd = 12.4), and 17 herds (37.5%) had no rotavirus-positive calves (mean number of samples per negative herd = 6.0). A live oral rotacoronavirus vaccine was used in neonatal calves of only 1 herd and 3 of 17 (17.6%) calves from this herd were positive for group A rotavirus. The percentage of the rotavirus-positive fecal samples from all calves (n = 450) when stratified by fecal consistency was as follows: 28.3% (13/46) had liquid feces; 25.6% (10/39) had semiliquid feces; 23.4% (22/94) had pasty feces; and 10.7% (29/271) had firm feces.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)