Naval Guard - Veterinary Medicine Week Wrap-Up

It is Friday which means this will be the last post of the veterinary medicine week! I thought I would pick something unique to wrap up the week and for today I want to talk about the naval guard. I have mentioned in the past that we dip the belly button on all of our newborn calves with an iodine-like solution and thought I would dive deeper into the 'why.' 

Below is a picture of the naval guard that we use at our farm, it is a deep reddish/orange color and if you get it on your hands it tends to stain for a few days! The naval guard primarily contains isopropyl alcohol which is the main acting ingredient that aids in drying the naval of our calves quickly. So what is the point of dipping their naval if it dries up on its own? This is important because newborn calves are born will a developing immune system where some of the initial protection against pathogens is obtained though consumption of high quality colostrum. The naval of newborn calves is the umbilical cord when they were in utero. As we all know the umbilical cord is important as it provides the passage of nutrients to the calf as it is growing and developing, however once born the umbilical cord is now a threat as it can now pose a risk of acting as a bacteria highway to the bloodstream of the calf. One such disease that is a systemic, body-wide infection of the blood is called sepsis. Sepsis is very dangerous and can be fast acting. So, in the end the faster we can dip the naval and dry it out, the better we are at preventing disease associated with the umbilical cord at birth. 

Today we had a bull calf born in the morning and a Jersey bull calf born in the afternoon.

Today we shipped ___ gallons of milk.