November 2003

Keep Your Cattle Healthy

Beef-production success begins with an animal health preventive medicine program. Your local Southern States retailer can help.

Rodney Kleman prepares a vaccine.

As a beef producer and manager of livestock feed sales for Southern States, Mike Peacock knows what researchers and top beef producers know: Good herd health doesn't cost--it pays.

"It doesn't matter whether you have a few calves in your rural homestead pasture or a few hundred in a commercial operation, the principles are the same," Peacock says.

He explains that a good vaccination program is vital to successfully raising cattle.

Start by consulting with your local veterinarian or Extension livestock specialist to determine what diseases are major threats in your area. "You don't have to be a major commercial producer to get help from a professional," Peacock notes.

Another good source of advice and product information is your local Southern States livestock fieldman.

"We offer a full line of animal health care products from most of the top companies," notes Steve Flora, ag product buyer for Southern States. "Our livestock fieldmen have the training and experience to recommend the right products."

Always administer vaccines subcutaneously, if labeled. Intramuscular injections damage carcass quality.

Relying on advice from experts including animal health care professionals is critical, says Peacock. "If you use the wrong vaccine, you risk creating an abortion in cows or compounding problems when treating stressed calves," he notes.

For calves, start with a good vaccine to protect against respiratory and viral infections. Calf vaccines are not lifelong.

If you're inexperienced, any vet who deals with large animals can handle the vaccination services for you, Peacock notes.

"When a calf is weaned, moved or stressed, it creates a new set of challenges that often exceeds the animal's resistance level," Peacock says. "Everything that can go wrong in his life has occurred. A vaccination program helps counteract this."

A good health program is most critical when calves are under stress, Peacock cautions. "Calves under an ongoing vaccination program respond more favorably to adversity."

If you're running mother cows, protecting herd health in the cow herd should be an ongoing process. "Some producers falsely believe that once they vaccinate the cows in their original herd, they're covered," he cautions. Even with a certified clean bull or semen, as replacement heifers come into the herd, one untreated cow carrying an STD can infect an entire herd.

These types of viral infections are known as silent killers, because there usually are no obvious visual signs of problems.

The losses often come in the form of repeat breeders--those that come back into heat after they're bred or bred cows that end up with no calf. These cases often indicate an aborted fetus.

Diseases also may be robbing you, even with cows that avoid prebirth abortions. That may come in the form of weak calves--those with no stamina and high susceptibility to E. coli and salmonella.

Some reproductive tract infections cause a cow's reproductive life to end.

"Our field livestock specialists work in concert with local animal health care professionals to help put a solid herd health program in place," Peacock concludes.