4/8/2025 animal health management Beef cattle health

beef cattle are a little more

laid back

beef cattle have about one calf a year

beef cattle industry has to worry about breeding and weaning stress, vaccinations, supplementing a bit in winter, other than that about all thetre is to it

what time in a cows life in a beef cows life do you think that they would be most prone to getting sick

=neonatal health (first born) calving out if pasture or dry lot

=stay up to date on culling rates, getting really old cows out of the herd

=partrition, after they give birht

=BIG ONE TO REMEMBER=weaning

weaning is huge time

being seperated form mother (environmental change)

comign off from milk enterly (dietary change)

very unuqie to beef cattle industry= after weaning could go anywhere in the country (being shift 10plus hours too a feed lot in nebraska or texas)

lot of people send their cows out west to be fed in a feed lot,

for beef cattle what werll really looking at is disease resiselance vs pathogen load trying to balance these 2 thigns to keep cattle healthy

where we run into bplublems is where pathogen load overtips disease resilience

big issue arround weaning around shipping

pink eye= can have cattle loose eyes over that

foot rot= if you get cow in wet dry lot in spring → mud compacted up in feet and lame cows don’t do well

you can severly lower patheagon load and by doing that you can put your food off the gas with reslilenace, so if in really clean area you can ease up on some of your managment practeses

johnes= big disease with old cattle

these things can be ramped up when ramped up during weaning we try to ramp up disease relsalnce=

through

vaccination

decreasing pathogen load is a lot of times due to managment=

coccidia= those worms and parasites are all managment place

so if you have a bad maganement place of parasites=not rotating pastures enough

VACCINATION PROTOCOLS

parasite control=is there in cattle and they due have resistance, but not nearly the level that they have in small ruminants

nurtition

you can midigate a lot of disease by

bovine viral diarehhea

bulls= stds are big propblem

compylobactoer (vibrio) need to vaccinat for

trichim=vac

a big way to get around stds is AI, so you never fall off horse if you don’t ride horse’ if you never have your bulls around cows you don’t have to worry

cow std bull managment

cow herd isolated from new additions

-don’t put new stocker calves beside preg cows

std managment strategies

testing (BVDV-PI) new additions

some calves or cows that arn’t as rdisease resislance will actually start showing signs of BVDV if they got if from a PI

std managment stragegies

use vergin/yearling b

when do we want to vaccination for some of these repoductive disorders

pre breeding= MLV IBR, BVDV +, Lepto (lepto is deer disease)

MLV IBR and BVDV will affect ovaries in naive cows

a killed vaccinate is basically the virus but you cut it up into tiny things and get antigens so it is really prevented from

modified live ,take vervalgience can replicate and reproduce

big challenge with beef herds=

-60 day breeding season-wanna keep them tight and persistant, want to be able to seal cows at a consistant weight

-hard to find the perfect day to vaccinate when all cows have calved

want at least 50 days after calving to repbreed your animal. can be really tricky when trying to work in vaccinations iwndows for calved that have calved

-some will boost lepto at preg check? you can but it would be a risk

beef cows need at least killed booster once a year at least, twice a year isn’t a bad idea

calving distrubption in fall of 2018

when do i give pre=breeding vaccinatins

there are going to be a certain percentage of cows that are out most days

scours= big issue in calves

rota and corona can be devistating in calf population

takes effecet most when people take cows in for winter months, not quite a dry lot but still has little nubs of grass

ecol,i , salmonella= lot of these

if they get stressed/dehydrated ecoli is entrsnsic to gi trackt, can start to grow ecoli and get k99 stlransd and then get scours

Parasites

crypto

anc

coccidia=bloody direhaa, need ten spores to

takes a very keen managmer to stay on top of stuff like that

mother nature benefit mangment=

colostrum= get it in them first hour needs 2 quarts, next hour, a nother two quarts

crossbred catttle will get up , hit the bag not much of an issue

.

harder with purebred beef cattle= get head injurty from calvign issue, totally shellshocked in 20 degrees fahrienight

a clean calving area super important=

that is why in beef cattle it is such an advancts to go out on pasture

so you don’t have another cow on achor

i

sandhill system= move the cows yet to calve really limits spread of corona

baby calves and neonatal prodcue nurmal amounts of viruses, bacteria, and protozoa

colostrum- really consentrated needed to get into calve

it just so happens that all of the tight junction proteins in calf-young animals have not foremed, so you can get the stuff in them as long ias it is before 24 hours

even if you still have colsturm runnign on day two or three- not doing much for them

think clean udders: hay feeding

you can have hay rings= problem form a pathogen standpoing- holds a lot of water- attorcousous foot rot, everyone is so concnetrated around bale ring that they will all deficate there and the next guy rullign in will get uncatulated

we can unroll hay across the pasture=

issue hear from a beef cattle = there is a lot of waste-

so what they do is that they lay in it, deficate in that, and get foot rot

bunk feeding is preferable, but creating a lot of manure desnity in these lots shcih wis a great fohme for viral pathaogens wee’re trying to get away from

think clean udders: hay feeding

Cow vaccines=

can vacinatie cows for rota, corona,

clostridium perfringens

3 and 6 weeks pprior to calving in heifers

-one dose pre-calving in cows

calf vaccines/products

primary use in dairy calves=

• oral rota/corona vaccine

• corona/e coli antibodies

  • e coli antibodies

vaccination at birth

calf from 0-4 days of age has limited to no capcity to give a good immune response

-traditional programs

-plackleg at birth- disease manifisetatio of a clostrital, can give calf clostridlal strain when vacinationg it later in life

-can’t catch him after 4 days of age!!!

-no evidicne that it works

three weeks to weaning pathogens

big time for clostridial disease

wanna vaccinate at “branding” time- 2-3 months

pathogens3 weeks to weaning

when moms are getting pre-breeding shot?

if there is maternal interfiernce with antigens=if were vaccinateing cows, does that have an affect on calves

priming the immune response for weaning= in theory its a good idea

big one for pre weaning will be bovine resporotry disease complex

H somni= big secondary disease invader= get a big viral infector and get secondary phnemona

what you end up treating actually when cows get BRDC,

replacement heifers= these guys are on totally diffeernt vax scjeduele, need brucella and lepto=

people usually seperate bulls and steers and heifers at weaning then do vaccine for replacement heifers

way to standarize how cattle are being raised-golden tag program

staying i gave this vaccint, cavles have been eating out of bunk for a month , and use to drinking out of water

what can happen is cow calf producesers will have calves on pasture, then wean them on weanign day and take them directly to the sell bar

not givign cthe calves a chance to eat or restbit

stocker/backgrounder=people will buy cattle and have grass stock piled

you can buy them in fall or in the spring

you can buy five wieght cows and turtn them out on all these grasses

grow them to 7-8 weights, then sell them again and go into the feed lot

when your buying stiocker of

if your buying calves that don’t have that the question is do you booster or hold a big peyrimad ifo four and five

if you have a stressed out calf with lot of corsol, whats the problem of vaccinateng them when you get them? do you think all of that trailering and movement is going to help them mointer immune response? NO. when they get an immune response they need as little boosters of cortosol as possible

intrannasal vaccines= good for short term so herpies virus doesn’t have to ancho, 40 hour immunity thatsin

why would that be?

colostrum i\\

IGG havs half life of 21 days, don’t vac anything before 21 days

osme people argue to give killed as matenral AB may inactivate MLV before it replicates

trying to get a real robust cellular immunity

not going to inactivate virus

you can prime a response with killed produce and maybe a MLV product with vaccinating a calf <4 mponths of age

not until

pink eye vaccinations

pink eye is big issue in beef cattle since outside a lot

caused by bacteria neamed nmeralccula bovus

not only can flies carry it but it can also be on seathead of grass

break down natural barorious of eye which mroe cbacila can entera

cattle all walk- when the grass is high- in a straight line

pink eye vaccinatins rarn’t really effective. some use autogenous vaccins tortry and combat against it but those don’t really work

the good thing about maraculun bovus is you just need to put half a miligram of peniclilun into the eye as welll jks;lz

right under the conjusnctiva covering the eye

every time the calf blninks it will sprinkkly some pencilion across the eye

BQA

beef quality assurance

take a quiz and become BQA certified

the neuolegamunt runns over hear, and the

o

give subq and intramusclar vaccinations this way

don’t want to go on rump since lesions cost money

internal parasite control

-little tricky in cattle

big parasite resistance problem in sheep

what they used to do in sheep was deworm every month, then every quarter, no its gotten so bad that you can’t even deworm sheep that have worms, you have wait until they are anemic as well

cattle isn’t as bad, can take a lot of parasites so people ar epretty regulary deworming cattle

a big one that we’ll deworm

what people will do is deworm before wingter montsh to get ecotpasasite contorl also exposing intesntal worms yearly to ivermectin

we try and focus on who needs deworming the most

weaned calves (need to pour those gues since they will get worms)

yearlings= maybe on list somewhere, not as susceptible as weaned cows but you don’t have full blon

adults

refugia= is just parastie resistance

external parasite control-

lice=spend their entire life on the cow= problem in the winter cows get really itchy and will rub off all of their hair

treat all the animals

=pyrethrins

=avermectin

=grubs

fly control=

flies are huge presence in the summer

horn flies=easiest to control since spend lot of time on caows themselves

face flies=lot harder to control, since spedn a lot of time flying with insects and stay on cows face burrowed

stable flies= will hange around belly or theeir legs

Fly control

tags

pour-ons

back rubbers or dust

feed through (minerals)

(IGR)

Parasitic wasps

Fly traps

economically viable to treat for flies when getting 100-200 flies per head

somthing

you need to look for horn flies in the field

they don

mineral supplements

most forages are deficient in one or more trace minerals

free choirce of macros and micros is prefered just put them out there and live where they want

• loose salt is preferred

• blocks

injectable products

• bo-se

  • MultiMin

develop a plan with clients=

who are the pagot

eadch farm is going to be so different and unique= good thing and bad thing about beef vs dairy

lot of people with a lot of idfferent managment styles

need to monitor you success

if your trying to treate for lfies nad you put a rubber down there and the flies still havn’t come down- the rubber failed and you need to try again with some other treatment

Goal= a herd that has immunity to a pathogen

what is a farmer going to look at tho say my cattle are immunized

• bottle is empty

• The vaccine was injected into the calf

• the vaccination was injucted innto the calf in the correct site (BQA)

is all immunity equal? which vaccine does waht

minimize clincial disease

(in individual or herd)

prevent clinical disease - manafestationf of whatever pathogen you are dealing with

(in indiidual or herd)

minimize infection

prevent infection

promote productivity

(in individual or herd)

bovine immune system

limited to no ig transrer prioer to birht

-colostrum

• IgA, IgM, and IgG

  • they havea pretty intense innate with immune response

more numerous than neutrofills

first line of defense but you see mroe lentocites

gamma delta t cells predominatn ant birth and decline as adults

function is still partically unknown

but may be important to resistance to lepto, mycobacterium bovis

why cattle might not response to the vaccine

s

stress alters immunity significantly

neonates do not have good immune response until 4-7 days

both acute and chronic stress is generally thought immunosuppressive

may be some benefits to acute stress

mimicing stress -

why does the best calf die?

big thing with farmers

these are all theories= no real literanture that is tieing all of these things directly to the fenotype

Residual feed intake= hwo much does an animal have to eat in order to gain a pound. hgih rfi means animal has to intake a lot fo food to grow a lot. the low rfi that don’t ahve to eat a lot to gain weight could be diverting more of those nutureints to intrucion rather

theory is if you are growing a lot off of a little feed than you don’t ahve very rebust immune system

s

slow, fat, and happy -shifts resources ot gain, does great when environment is great

nervous Nelly or Nelson= constantly on surveillance for pathogens or predators

spends more neergy on immune sthstem

the immune system opernates similar to skeletal muscle in that it invkjl;sajd

tra

transcription of dna to rna and transcioption oto thatinto our product

if you can give them a little bit of toixn or toxoid so they don’t get a full bloon episode thats ideal