Keep water clean
Good livestock manure management is important to the health of calves and humans.
“Cryptosporidium, an intestinal parasite, is relatively common in newborn calves with diarrhea,” said Murray Kennedy, parasitologist with Alberta Agriculture.
Yellow, smelly, mucousy scours can contain billions of Cryptosporidium oocysts (eggs). This parasite is transmitted through ingestion of fecally contaminated food or water.
The parasite attacks cells lining the intestine of many warm-blooded animals, hampering the ability to absorb water and nutrients, which leads to watery diarrhea.
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“Healthy calves recover over time, but infections in newborns with weakened immune systems can be serious or even fatal,” Kennedy said.
People can also become infected with the parasite. Last spring, it caused large outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness in Cranbrook and Kelowna, B.C., and Collingwood, Ont.
Symptoms in humans include profuse watery diarrhea, abdominal cramps, nausea, low-grade fever, dehydration and weight loss. There is no cure for cryptosporidiosis. Recovery depends upon an individual’s immune system.
In infants, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems, the infection can be serious and even fatal.
Because most prairie residents get their drinking water from surface waters, proper handling of manure and runoff from wintering and calving sites is important.
“Removing the parasite through filtration is an important part of the water treatment process because Cryptosporidium is highly resistant to chemical disinfectants like chlorine,” said Sandra Cooke, water quality research officer with Alberta Agriculture.
Naturally turbid prairie rivers, the source of most prairie drinking water, require filtration to bring water up to drinking water quality standard, she said.
During high runoff in spring, drinking water treatment plants are under stress to remove more sediment and particulate material and if filters don’t remove small particulate material, the threat of Cryptosporidium remains.
Many rural people get drinking water from dugouts and ponds without filtration and with minimal treatment.
The public’s perception of the source of the parasite can hurt agriculture’s clean image even though human sewage and wildlife are also sources.
For example, the outbreak in Cranbrook peaked just two weeks after 400 head of cattle were released onto the watershed that fed the towns’ water supply. Although cattle could not be directly linked to the cause, public health officials ordered them removed from the upstream watershed, streambeds cleaned up, and a plan developed requiring ranchers to keep cattle at least 30 metres away from feeder streams.
The Alberta Cattle Commission started an educational effort after other water treatment problems were linked to spring runoff and possible contamination by manure.
Manure management not only protects people, but also calves.
To reduce calf losses to Cryptosporidium and minimize their stress, provide lots of clean, dry bedding and isolate calves with scours.
To prevent manure from reaching water sources, keep calving sites away from streams, lakes and ground water wells; prevent manure runoff at snowmelt from reaching streams; and water cows and calves off-stream.
-Alberta Agriculture
