FINE TUNING OF HERD HEALTH & MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS

By Roy Lewis, DVM

They say the only constant is change. We know in the cattle business if we stop improving and accept the status quo we will get behind. I have decided to put together a bunch of ideas of changes that are now happening in the cattle industry. As I travel across the country and meet with producer groups and veterinarians many different production tips come to mind. Hopefully some may be applicable to your operation and help you improve the performance and efficiencies of your farming or ranching operation. Have discussions with your veterinarian, nutritionist or fellow cattle producer on whether these points may be applicable to your operation. Many of these changes can improve performance even though your Simmental herd may already be performing very well. Looking at the one or two things that may improve this even in a minor way may be worth it.

Vaccinology is making great strides with new intranasal technologies and broader vaccines to cover more diseases in one shot. There are newer intranasal cannulas and even guns now on the market that are easy to use and really get a good application of the vaccine well up into the nostril. Summer is an ideal time to review if new products are to be added. Remember vaccines help prevent disease which is far better than treating and can hopefully cut down our antibiotic usage. We don’t want to pass off BVD persistently infected calves to the feeding sector so there is heavy reliance on the cow calf sector to wean vaccinated calves. Even vaccines for footrot are becoming more commonplace especially on your herd bulls. Clostridial disease is always present but remember specific diseases such as tetanus or redwater only come in certain clostridial vaccines. We see more and more cases of clostridial disease in spite of there being very good vaccines available that are inexpensive. Work with your herd veterinarian to make sure timing is right on the vaccines and handle and administer them properly. Every time you process the thought should enter your mind, what vaccines do I need and is there anything new that will give my cattle more comprehensive coverage and hopefully less clinical disease. In Canada there have just been two mycoplasma vaccines enter the market. They will be more of a feedlot vaccine but are another tool if you get mycoplasma respiratory disease.

Pain control or NSAIDs are often mentioned in the beef codes of practice for painful procedures such as castration or dehorning. With your purebred herds only the castration of the older bulls that don’t make the grade are where NSAIDs are really needed. In veterinary medicine most times we work on sick cattle that have a fever or we perform surgery then one of the NSAIds may be indicated. Your veterinarian now has a wide range of these NSAIds to choose from and lameness is another common usage. They even come in convenient methods of application such as orally or pour on as well as the traditional injectable ones. Some have very short slaughter withdrawals others are longer. They make the cattle keep their appetites and recover quicker so in addition to being the right thing they are economically very justified.

They are all prescription drugs but your veterinarian should be up to date on which ones to use in which situations for you. The greatest observation I have had is how quick recovery from; claw amputations, castrations, lameness etc are when NSAIDs are used in a timely manner. The public is also talking about painkillers from an animal welfare perspective so it simply is becoming the right thing to do.

With parasite control monitoring of herds with fecals for internal parasites has become commonplace and many strategies including strategic deworming at pasture is keeping producers and their veterinarians cognizant of different ways to deworm knowing that a certain level of parasites reduces production and leads to greater health problems especially in calves and yearlings. More products are available for lice and fly control and some even have some mosquito control which additionally helps production on grass. The critical thing is timing of application and switching products if resistance by the horn flies starts to become a problem.

When purchasing your breeding bulls (this applies to purebred breeders as well) carefully examine all the information such as semen forms, EPDs and any genetic information. They are half the genetics in your herd unless your AI’ing and warrant special attention depending if you want bulls of calving ease performance or carcass characteristics.

Many breeders now prevaccinate with even footrot and the health status and vaccination history should be indicated in the catalogue.

We need as an industry to do more testing and get more information on the antibiotic sensitivity so we can all make more informed decisions on antibiotic usage. If for instance you have lost some calves to pneumonia talk to your herd veterinarian about doing both a culture when he/she does a postmortem plus a sensitivity so best to predict which antibiotic will work the best. This again will help monitor what resistant organisms are out there plus success at treatment will be optimized. It also tells you what type of pneumonia you have.

There are times when blood samples may be needed for regulatory or disease testing, genetic testing or checking for macrominerals such as calcium also fecal samples in case conditions like Johne’s are suspected. These are sampling techniques breeders can be trained in. Even if working with your veterinarian a series of pictures or better yet a video tied in with some clinical parameters may help facilitate tele-vetmedicine. There are some veterinarians doing this with their clients. There may be a fee or it is tied in with a herd health program. Either way this may work well on individual clinical cases and of course from there is there any preventative program to introduce to the rest of the herd. I hope summer grazing is going well and the rains are starting to bring on the grass.