Efficacy of the immunostimulant Vetokehl D4 and ampicillin in the treatment of bronchopneumonia in calves

摘要

In studies of 30 2-month-old calves weighing 80 kg with acute bronchopneumonia, 10 animals were treated with i.m. injection of ampicillin at 10 mg/kg (group I). Ten calves in group II were treated with 2 s.c. injections of Vetokehl Sub D4 5 days apart. One dose of Vetokehl contained 1 ml of aqueous extract of Bacillus subtilis D4. Calves in group III received both treatments. One calf in group I died within the first week of the experiment. One calf in group II and III and 5 calves in group I had symptoms of bronchopneumonia when examined 3 weeks after treatment. Mean body weight gain during 56 days of experiment was 24.0, 27.5, 32.2 kg with mean daily gains of 0.429, 0.491 and 0.577 kg for the 3 groups, respectively. Blood samples from calves ingroups II and III showed increase in phagocytosis, percentage of NBT positive granulocytes, percentage of esterase-positive lymphocytes and number of blastic transformations in lymphocytes as compared with group I. Significantly higher concentrations oftotal protein and beta-globulins were found in groups II and III when compared with group I. All results are tabulated. It is concluded that antibiotic therapy with simultaneous non-specific immunostimulation (group III) gave the best results.