Lloyd veterinarian talks cattle Rx

Bovine Respiratory Disease or BRD as pneumonia is called in cattle, is responsible for 70-80 per cent of all diseases in feedlots and 40-50 per cent of all deaths.

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“It’s actually the most common problem we run into with cattle particularly when they are in the feedlot. They get quite a few pneumonia-related issues,” said Wennekamp.

He will get called out to the field or feedlot by a farmer, but it’s usually for a herd situation.

“We’re trying to figure out what’s going on with a group of animals and trying to prevent it for the future,” said Wennekamp. He says they can get sick and die from it and it is contagious.

“Many of them recover, but they do require antibiotic therapy,” he said just prior to his formal talk.

“What I am talking about today is the resistance that can come from treating with antibiotics.” vations to case studies and solutions, noting there is no one size fits all remedy.

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“A lot of times it’s treating the ones that are affected, isolating those ones and also coming up with prevention therapies to avoid the problem in the future,” he years among the solutions he touched on.

Wennekamp says mixing cattle and shipping them long distance adds to the risk adding there is an app to allow a farmer to sort cattle by age.

Cattle get lung infections too, but they can’t reach the medicine cabinet for relief.

Solutions to cattle pneumonia and antibiotic resistance were part of a presentation by veterinarian Trent Wennekamp from the Lloydminster Animal Hospital during Agri-Visions a Lloyd Ex Feb. 8-9.

He says there are a couple of viruses and three main bacteria, all with scientific names that can cause it with calves affected by BRD more than older animals.

Wennekamp says cattle with BRD might look depressed or off-feed or stay away from other animals. Those are the main signs.

Wennekamp told his audience there’s been no new antibiotics developed for more than 60 years, for good reasons.

“The more they are used, the less they work,” he said.

It can also cost up to $1 billion to develop a new one.

Wennekamp covered everything in his technical presentation from research and field obser -

He told the audience there have been significant advances in the development of nasal vaccines as well over the past 20 or so

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Technology is also being developed to test for BRDcausing bacteria in 15 minutes. Currently, it takes four to five days of lab work to detect it.