SoliDia

Approved for sale by Health Canada. No: NN.O0Z6

Helps maintain and support the microbiota and gut health during adaptation to dietary and environmental changes.

Diarrhea in ruminants is linked to several factors.

Generally, it is due to a change in diet and/or season.

Regarding dietary changes, this is chronologically the first cause to suspect when diarrhea appears quickly after grazing or following a period of significant grass growth.

Diarrhea is then due to indigestion following an overly abrupt dietary transition between the ration distributed indoors and that composed exclusively of grass in the pasture. As a reminder, the digestive flora takes about three weeks to balance after a change in ration and to digest it properly. During this period, it is common to observe diarrhea resulting from maldigestion.

·       Ingestion of water-laden grass, low in dry matter. This risk is even greater after a period of rapid growth following favorable, mild, and rainy weather.

·        Ingestion of young grass, which combines richness in soluble nitrogen (a particularly high risk with legumes), fermentable carbohydrates, and pectins.

Diarrhea resulting from these indigestions appears quickly, just a few days after turning out to pasture or rapid growth during the season. In cases of young or water-laden grass, these simple indigestions can become complicated by gaseous and frothy indigestions, with abdominal distension and respiratory distress, sometimes fatal.

The chronology and circumstances of diarrhea appearance after grazing are, as previously indicated, the primary elements that can aid in diagnosis. The nature and consistency of the diarrhea should then be considered: rather very liquid and greenish in cases of dietary cause, it can be less abundant and rather sticky in cases of parasitism or blackish in some intoxications.

The presence of other symptoms can also be indicative, such as anemia or "bottle jaw" in haemonchosis, the presence of scabby lesions on the head in facial eczema, or nervous signs in some intoxications...

Taking the rectal temperature of some affected animals should allow suspecting or ruling out an infectious origin. For reference, the normal temperature of an adult ruminant varies between 38°C and 39°C, that of a young one between 38.5 and 39.5°C. In all cases, a fever above 40°C is suspicious.

Finally, any diarrhea in the pasture should prompt feces collection for coprological analysis, to detect possible parasitic infestations.