Bhat et al.
Table 1. Therapeutic trail design in calves with colibacillosis.
No. of
Animals
Group No.
Drug
Dose
Route
Animals
Healthy
1
6
-
-
-
Infected and untreated
2
6
-
-
-
Infected and treated
3
6
Co-trimoxazole 25 mg/kg BW (Bolus 1/5th orally)
Orally
Infected and treated
4
6
Neomycin
10mg/kg BW (Bolus 1/2nd orally)
Orally
Infected and treated
5
6
Gentamicin
4mg/kg BW (2 ml i/m BID daily)
Parenterally
Infected and treated
6
6
Ciprofloxacin
4mg/kg (250mg tab-1/3rd BID)
Orally
wherein, drug helped in restoration of the disturbed
+ = slightly improved, ++ = improved, +++ = recovery and
haematobiochemical
changes
and
abating
clinical
++++ = complete recovery
symptoms. The drugs helped in normalizing the
in this study. Five of the calves clinically responded well
haematobiochemical changes like hemoglobin, packed
with the fecal consistency returning to normal within
cell volume, total leucocyte count, blood glucose, serum
six days. There was however, a significant increase in
sodium, total protein and albumin. The drug showed
the blood glucose, serum sodium, serum potassium,
good results and proved to be 100 per cent effective
total protein and albumin fraction with restoration of
for treating enteric colibacillosis. This might be due to
hematological values post treatment in the gentamicin
the fact that these fluroquinolones group of antibiotics
treated group within six days which suggest that drug
has got less resistance as they have recently been
was effective for treating colibacillosis. This finding is in
introduced and less used in Veterinary practice (Patil et
agreement with the findings of Jones et al. (1977) who
al., 1999; Choudhary and Das, 2003). The Fernandes
reported that gentamicin improved the stool consistency in
et al. (2009) also reported ciprofloxacin, effective
the calves with experimentally induced E. coli diarrhoea.
against G netative organisms in calf diarrhoea. Group
The infected calves of group 4 treated with neomycin
5 was treated with gentamicin @ 4mg/kg body weight
@10mg/kg body weight orally (1/2 nd bolus) proved 66.67
(2 ml i/m bid), which showed 83.33 per cent efficacy
Table 2. Therapeutic efficacy of different therapeutic regimens in colibacillotic calves
Response to Treatment
Group
No. of cases treated
No.
Case
No. of cases
0 hrs
48 hrs
96 hrs
144 hrs
percentage
Recovery
Delayed
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2
six
-
-
-
-
-
-
6
3
six
+
++
++
+++
four
66.67
2
4
six
+
++
++
+++
four
66.67
2
5
six
+
++
++ +
++++
five
83.33
1
6
six
+
++
+++
++++
six
100
-
96
Journal of Animal Research: v.5 n.1. April 2015