[Viral and bacterial shedding in calves raised under commercial conditions]

Etiological, clinical, and epizootiological studies were carried out with newborn calves on two cow complexes of 500 animals each, raised under industrial conditions. Virologic and bacteriologic investigations of a total of 300 fecal samples taken from both calves and dams on the day of calving up to the 10th day as well as on the 20th and 30th day revealed that in 90 per cent of the cases there were rotaviruses. With calves that remained with the cows up to the 72nd hour 30 to 50 per cent of the rotaviruses were found from the second to the tenth day, and with calves that were separated from their dams immediately after calving rotaviruses were found at more advanced age too. Bacteriologically, as many as 92 strains of Escherichia coli were established as isolated from the fecal samples studied. Antigen K99 was demonstrated with 3.26 per cent of the strains. It was concluded that both with regard to the numbers of the E. coli strains isolated and to the period during which these were found the bacterium prevailed in calves that did not suck directly from their dams in the first days following calving.