Steps for a healthy herd

First things first. Let’s consider “healthy” as the absence of illness or disease (not being sick). Now, think about what it takes for you to be healthy. The experts tell us to eat right and be active. That is the same core principle for producing healthy beef cattle.

Proper nutrition is number one on the list of health management concerns. The body has a minimum set of nutrient requirements to simply maintain normal body functions (lungs, heart, brain, digestion, etc.). Additional nutrients are required to meet the demands of growth, reproduction and outside stressors such as environmental temperature, disease exposure, etc. that activate the immune system to keep disease/sickness at bay. These nutrients include protein, energy, vitamins, minerals, trace minerals and water. And, for the best health and performance, they are required in a particular balance or relationship to each other and according to the demands of the system or environment.

For all of my veterinary training and experience in use of vaccines and medications for the prevention and treatment of animal disease, the most important contributor to the long term solution for many of the problems I’ve seen has been creating a good, detailed and complete feeding program. The feeding program should be structured to get the optimum performance out of the chosen genetics within the environmental and management constraints of the operation. If that is done, then the health aspects can be largely self-controlled with minimal inputs of disease prevention products.

After the nutrition considerations, the next biggest area contributing to health concerns is the type of operation and the animal flow involved. A closed cow/calf herd (closed meaning minimal or no outside animals entering the herd) with good isolation from other operations generally has fewer health risks than a stocker/backgrounder that is constantly purchasing calves of unknown origin and background. The more “open” an operation is to something from the outside, the more complex and difficult it can be to keep animals as healthy as they should be.

After the nutrition and management considerations you can start outlining the basic health protocols, realizing that their implementation and expansion can vary significantly depending on your situation.

Parasite control is the starting point for me for the animal health plans. Over the years I’ve not seen any herd that could perform well without a plan to control parasites. Parasites, both internal and external, are an irritation to beef cattle. And beyond irritation they can introduce infectious diseases; can keep an animal’s immune system tied up; and can steal nutrients from the animals that would be better used for growth and production.

External parasites you should try to control include flies (horn, face, stable, and house), ticks, lice, and mange. (I would also include horse flies in the list, but beyond sticks, hands, bricks, or other bludgeoning objects, there hasn’t been a convenient, chemical control developed for them to date.)

But for the bulk of these pests, there is a world of chemical controls in the marketplace. They include an assortment of ear tags, sprays, dusts, pour-ons, injectables, and feed through products.

There are several classes of chemicals available including pyrethroids (of several generations), organophosphates, abamectins, and growth regulators. The best plan is to use a combination of various forms to minimize the development of chemical resistance, address different aspects of the parasite life, handle different segments of the seasons, and deal with the variations in different types of operations. As with all products, I encourage a thorough reading of the label and the following of directions to get the best return on investment in the products.

Also remember the importance of sanitation, weed/grass control and use of fly baits to minimize the breeding ground opportunities for the flies on the list. Efforts in these areas can make the compounds used on the animals a lot more effective.

Internal parasites include worms of various types and families. All of them steal nutrients from the animals they invade. Most of them are very irritating to the digestive tract through which they enter and develop. Many of them have larval stages that migrate through areas and organs of the body other than just the digestive tract, causing damage and spreading disease as they go.

As with external parasite control, there are several chemical classes and physical forms of dewormer products on the market. The physical forms include injectable, pour on, oral bolus, oral paste/gel, oral liquid/drench, and various feed through forms including blocks, pellets, crumbles, and even one formulation for use in liquid feed tanks. All of these various forms of internal parasite control are very effective against their label claimed parasites if they are properly applied according to directions. And that is the real catch, “properly applied.”

Very often, the choice of parasite control products comes down to convenience of administration. And generally, the more convenient a product is, the greater chance that it doesn’t get “properly applied.” That can be especially true with feed-through products that depend on each animal to eat the appropriate amount of product for their weight. There just isn’t any way to make that happen short of feeding individual animals, and that just isn’t convenient. So the best choice is an individual-dose product (oral, inject, or pour on) given at the appropriate dose. And doses are determined by animal weight, either by running them over a scale before treating or developing a good ability to estimate.

The timing of internal parasite control is important also. It is generally accepted to deworm at spring turnout (before moving to clean, fresh spring pastures) to try to minimize pasture contamination with worm eggs and larvae that can reinfect grazing animals. The deworming would then be done again after the first killing frost in the fall (to avoid feeding internal parasites all winter).

Effectiveness of internal parasite control programs can be easily and inexpensively monitored by taking appropriate manure samples to your local Veterinarian for evaluation. Some parasitologists and laboratories are also testing manure samples at deworming and again two weeks later to quantify the reduction in fecal egg counts as a way to more specifically measure the effectiveness of deworming programs.

After the parasite concerns have been addressed we get into discussions about basic vaccine programs. No matter what type of beef cattle operation it is, there is a core set of vaccines that should be considered basic building blocks for a program. The core vaccine considerations include:

• 4-way viral (IBR, BVD, PI3, BRSV)
• 5-way lepto with vibrio
• 7-way clostridial
• Pasteurella

There are many other vaccines out there to consider, but their addition to an operation’s health program needs to be justified by a proper diagnosis and risk assessment. Just because a vaccine exists for purchase doesn’t necessarily mean that every operation would benefit from its use.

The 4-way viral products are most desirable for their benefit in preventing the diseases caused by IBR and BVD. Both of the virus families can cause respiratory and reproductive problems. In addition, BVD can cause digestive system problems. But the most significant threat from this foursome is the threat of calves being born persistently infected (PI) with BVD. That can occur if a cow is infected between day 50 and 125 of pregnancy. Calves that are born as PI will carry and shed the virus their entire life, becoming a potential “typhoid Mary” for every animal around them.

With the PI aspect in mind, it is highly recommended that 4-way viral vaccines be given to breeding herd animals as a modified live vaccine (MLV) and administered 2 to 4 weeks before breeding. That offers the greatest protection possibility during the early stages of pregnancy when the PI risk occurs. [Note: the MLV vs. killed-product consideration might warrant some further discussion with your local veterinarian to be sure the significance is totally understood.]

The 5-way Lepto w/ Vibrio is a combination of killed bacterial organism products. These organisms, when encountered as true infectious bacteria in a herd, can both cause severe reproductive losses.

Vibrio (or Campylobacter) is venereally transmitted by natural breeding and can result in early embryonic death causing interruption of pregnancy very early in gestation. It is generally seen as delayed recycling of animals previously thought to be pregnant.

With infections by the Lepto organisms (5 common strains) the common clinical sign is poor breeding results in heifers infected as youngsters and late term abortion and breeding problems in mature cows. This organism can be carried by many different animal species and can be especially prevalent in shallow, stagnant, surface water sources.

With these clinical disease possibilities it is clear that the 5-way Lepto w/ Vibrio combination is also best used before breeding as was mentioned with the 4-way viral product.

The 7-way Clostridial products, often referred to as “7-way Blackleg,” are a combination of multiple strains of the Clostridial family of bacteria. This bacterial family forms a spore that can be present in soil for years before infecting a grazing animal and given the opportunity to cause disease. The various members of this bacterial family are most able to infect and cause disease in young, rapidly growing calves. The effect on the calf can be anything from an acute diarrhea to sudden death without much warning. The reason for this variability is the severe toxins that this family of bacteria can produce when they begin to multiply in an animal to disease-causing levels. Note: Tetanus is caused by one member of this bacterial family but is not protected against by the regular 7-way Clostridial products.

The 7-way Clostridial products (also a killed product) are generally given to calves for the first time a few weeks pre-weaning with a booster given 3-6 weeks after the first dose. Depending on the incidence in the herd, management of the operation, and history of the farm itself, these products may be given annually to adult animals or may be started much earlier in a calf’s life.

“Overeating disease,” or enterotoxemia, is also caused by a member of this family of bacteria and becomes an important consideration prior to putting calves on a more concentrated diet before and after weaning.

Pasteurella (both Pasteurella multocida and Mannheimia haemolytica) is a normal inhabitant of the lungs of beef cattle (and many other species as well). The animal’s body, properly fed and taken care of, usually does a very admirable job of keeping this bacteria at bay and preventing disease. But stresses of weaning, movement, or just good old Missouri heat and humidity can create the right combination of events to give the bacteria an opportunity to cause respiratory illness of great significance in growing calves.

Adults seem to ward off this infection better—even in the worst environments. So if you want to use this vaccine to actually improve herd protection, count on vaccinating at preweaning. And sometimes a booster will need to be given at entry into the stocker/backgrounder or feedlot segment.

Pasteurella can be a big part of the “summer pneumonia” seen in calves still nursing cows in the midst of the great Midwest heat and humidity. For this reason Pasteurella vaccine has been easier to justify and much more beneficial to the cow/calf producer than was thought many years ago when these vaccines were first developed.

For this calf segment of the discussion, the 4-way viral vaccines also come into consideration because of their ability to cause respiratory disease at any stage of production, but especially in calves.