Experienced veterinarians and producers can take steps to avoid livestock health issues.
An observant set of eyes and use of the other senses can often provide clues about problems that led to illness, and those can pertain to the entire herd.
It’s important to recognize whether an individual disease or health condition is a one off, the tip of the iceberg or the first clinical case among many that are still hidden.
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When I was called to do an autopsy in a pasture, it was always good to do a quick tour through the herd. In summer, if grass is good and weather hasn’t been too hot, cattle look their best. Cattle with dry hair coats and a bit gaunt are easier to detect.
If a number of animals have that appearance, it’s time to talk about co-morbidity. In summer, it could be due to parasites, both internal and external, including worms, lice and ticks.
The former two are a more common early spring or fall problem, but ticks are being reported with greater frequency, so they must be kept in mind.
Problems can also occur during fly season, which can stress cattle and cause weight loss or eye issues. Is there a fly control program that is well timed?
From fly tags to pour-ons to cattle oilers to feed additives, there are different methods, but a limited number of insecticides. That is why some organic products are coming out.
It is always good to check pastures for debris such as twine, silage bags or other plastics. Young calves are inquisitive and will pick away at this stuff.
I shudder when I see a battery lying in a pasture, likely from an electric fencer. It’s a potential lead poisoning case when that battery breaks apart.
One should also be cognizant of abandoned oil well sites and borrow pits, though these are becoming less common.
Have a look for toxic weeds that you know may grow in the area, and use resources to identify them.
Be proactive on sites where cattle may injure themselves from exposed sharp culverts, old equipment or dump sites.
It’s hard to see them all but big badger holes have caused severe lameness and broken limbs when cattle or horses fall in.
We can’t prevent all injuries but many can be avoided by preventive maintenance.
A few diseases are immunosuppressive, such as BVD and coccidiosis. Both can make cattle more susceptible to other conditions so initial clinical signs may point you in another direction. Coccidiosis can be made worse by an underlying worm issue, whereby cleaning it up will allow the animal to also clear the coccidiosis.
Nutrition can be a co- morbidity. Deficient trace minerals weaken the herd’s immune system, leading to other clinical diseases from pneumonia to diarrhea to almost anything.
Some cases of Johne’s disease can indicate co-morbidities. I suggest looking at what the individual cow or bull may have been subjected to as a young calf. Since we know Johne’s is pretty much contracted in the first three to six months of life, focus on that time frame.
I think Johne’s is related to the number of organisms being shed and proximity of the cattle to each other. Larger herds are more susceptible and if you have creep areas for calves, it keeps them away from the cows a little more and improves the odds that the calves won’t catch it.
The moral of the story here is that most things in cattle production are interrelated and underlying disease will generally hurt production. If productivity, performance or reproductive rate differ greatly from past years, there is something wrong and an underlying problem could be detected.
Reproduction is a large topic but check the Beef Cattle Research Council website for a multifaceted section on all the things affecting reproduction, from the bulls’ side to the cows’ side.
If reproduction can be improved by just one per cent, it has a huge economic impact on cattle production. Producers who don’t vaccinate for reproductive diseases or semen-test bulls or check for pregnancy must have difficulty surviving in today’s world, where reproduction is key.
