Imunostimulant effects on coccidioses treatment of calves

Abstract

Coccidiosis is one of the main diseases of the gastrointestinal tract of ruminants, manifested by subtle changes such as reduction of weight gain, watery diarrhea until bloody diarrhea. In its clinical form, the intestinal mucosa compromises the absorption of nutrients from the diet, culminating in delays in the clinical recovery of the animals. The present work aimed to evaluate the efficacy of two treatments in the clinical recovery of coccidiosis in growing dairy calves by evaluating hematocrit, protein and fibrinogen plasmatic, leucogram, egg count per gram of feces, visual inspection of the pelage and incidence of diarrhea. Seven Jersey calves between 2 and 6 months of age with coccidiosis were divided into two groups according to the treatment. The antibiotic and catofos group (C), with four calves, was treated with sulfamethoxazole + trimethoprim and the immunostimulant butafosfan + vitamin B12 (Catofós®), both in a single dose, and the antibiotic group (A) with three calves was treated with only sulfamethoxazole + trimethoprim in a single dose. It was observed that both treatments were effective in combating the disease, reducing the symptomatology of the disease, improving the pelage of the animals and negatively coproparasitological examination. Although the parameters leukogram, fibrinogen and protein plasmatic did not change with the treatments, the antibiotic and catofos group had a significant increase in the hematocrit, allowing to prove the efficiency of both drugs.