New post-weaning drench aims to protect calves from coccidiosis and worms

New Zealand’s Alleva Animal Health introduces Turbo Initial, a combined anthelmintic and coccidiocide designed to safeguard calves during the vulnerable transition from meal feeding to pasture, addressing a critical risk period in calf development.

The riskiest phase in calf rearing often begins when meal feeding ends, because the coccidiostat protection built into the ration disappears just as calves move on to pasture, according to Alleva Animal Health.

Richard McKinley, the company’s director of commercial operations, said that transition can leave animals vulnerable at a point when they are already under pressure from weaning and the shift from a pre-ruminant to a functioning rumen animal. Coccidiosis is caused by protozoan parasites picked up from contaminated bedding, pens and feeding areas, and the disease can damage the lining of the large intestine as the organisms multiply.

Veterinary guidance notes that calves may show diarrhoea, poor appetite, lethargy and reduced growth, but subclinical infections are common and can quietly erode liveweight gains. The problem is often associated with stressful periods such as weaning, and can appear in calves from as young as three weeks old.

McKinley said worm burdens may also be more advanced than farmers expect, because calves are eating grass before formal weaning.

Alleva’s Turbo Initial is designed for that gap, combining an anthelmintic with a coccidiocide in a single post-weaning drench. The company says the product, available only through veterinary clinics, is intended to bridge the period before natural immunity develops.