Preventing disease improves profitability for cattlemen

DUBUQUE, Iowa — One way to make more money with beef cows is to save some money.

“I don’t want to fix broken cows — I want to help people make more money,” said Mark Hilton, veterinarian at Midwest Beef Cattle Consultants, of West Lafayette, Indiana.

“I don’t like sick animals, they don’t make you money and it is not why I became a veterinarian,” said Hilton during a presentation at the Driftless Region Beef Conference, hosted by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, University of Illinois Extension and University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension.

“Preventing disease is a big deal and I want my cows to have a great day, every day,” he said. “I am really concerned about animal welfare.”

Unfortunately, many cattlemen pay good money for a new disease.

“A new disease generally does not come from deer, birds or the air,” said Hilton, who has been a veterinarian for 42 years. “It usually comes in the form of four legs on a livestock trailer because we did not ask the right questions.”

A closed beef herd is really unusual.

“A closed herd means you are AI-ing a significant number of your cows, you are producing your own clean up bulls and your own replacement heifers,” the veterinarian said.

Before buying cattle, Hilton encourages cattlemen to ask their herd health veterinarian to contact the seller’s herd health veterinarian to talk about the health of the herd.

“A veterinarian cannot tell one of his clients about another herd. I must have permission from the owner of the herd,” he stressed.

“I don’t care if you are buying cows or feeder calves, buy from as few sources as you can,” he said. “As you add number of herds that you are buying from, your chance of disease goes up exponentially.”

Hilton’s rule of thumb for feeder calves is to rest them for about as many hours as they were on the truck before vaccinating them.

“Make sure feed and water is out and easy for them to find,” he said. “You should have a protocol set in stone for the calves.”

Vaccinating the cow herd appropriately is important, as well as keeping good records.

“You should have a very specific vaccination protocol for your herd,” Hilton said. “And you and your herd health veterinarian should sit down and review it every year.”

Cattlemen need to learn about new vaccines.

“If something is better than the old stuff, you need to know about that,” the veterinarian said. “You also need to know if you are vaccinating or doing things you do not need to do anymore.”

For example, Hilton has a 14-year-old cow that has not been dewormed for seven years.

“She has a body condition score of 5.5 to 6 and every year except last year she settled on the first service AI,” the cattleman said.

“If she has worms in her, why would I want to kill them?” he said. “They must not be doing much damage to her.”

Hilton’s rule of thumb is cows under 4 years old or under body condition score of 4 to 5 get dewormed.

“But older cows develop some immunity to worms,” he said.

Since rodents, birds and flies can cause disease problems, cattlemen should focus on reducing pests.

“Manage your feed bunks to prevent contamination,” Hilton said. “I have seen feed bunks with an electric wire running down the middle, to keep cattle from standing in the bunk.”

“Make sure you disinfect your equipment when doing things like dehorning,” he said. “When giving shots, I change needles every five calves, but if the calves were purchased from many places, I change the needle for every calf and I know that costs a little more.”

Nothing beats daily observation of cattle behavior, the veterinarian said.

“The No. 1 factor for a successful treatment on bovine respiratory disease is catching it early,” he said.

All cattle herds, Hilton said, should be vaccinated for BVD and IBR.

“Vaccination does not equal protection from disease,” he said. “But an animal that has great nutrition lives in a great environment and gets exposed to IBR will mount an immune response to it and get over it.”

Biosecurity is an important aspect of reducing diseases in cattle herds.

“I can take a well-vaccinated animal and expose it to an animal that is persistently infected with BVD and make that animal sick because there is so much virus being shed,” Hilton said. “If an animal has 1 million units of protection but it gets exposed to 2 million virus particles, it just lost by 1 million.”

Disease loves animals that have never seen the disease, the veterinarian said.

“Neonates are incubators of disease and calf scours is a classic example of that,” he said.

Johne’s disease can be a tough disease for cattle herds.

“About 80%-plus of animals that get exposed happens during the calf’s first few days of life because that is when they are the most susceptible,” Hilton said.

Salmonella and E. coli are baby calf diseases.

“The only time I have seen salmonella in a cow-calf herd is when somebody has a cow lose a calf and they go to a dairy or a sale barn and buy a calf to put on that cow,” Hilton said.

“If you are calving, you should never buy any young animals,” he said. “I am negative about buying bred cows you know nothing about because that is the best way to buy BVD.”

When administering vaccines, Hilton said, follow the label instructions.

“If it says 10 milliliters, 20 milliliters is not better,” the veterinarian said.

“I give modified live vaccines for calves under 1 year of age,” he said. “Over 1 year of age, using killed vaccines is probably a little safer for cows.”

“For some cows, even if they have had modified live vaccines many times, if you give it too close to breeding time, you can have inflammation of the ovary and decreased conception rates,” Hilton said.

“I used to give modified live vaccines to cows, but I switched once the research came out,” he said. “Now the heifers get two doses of modified live vaccine before they become a cow.”

“Biosecurity is not expensive — disease is expensive,” the veterinarian said. “Everyone on the farm plays a role and simple habits can prevent major problems.”