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Winning The BRD Battle: Stress Reduction And Smart Management
John Hambrick (right) and his veterinarian, Kevin Fenton, check cows near Rock Island, Oklahoma. (Provided photo)
ROCK ISLAND, Okla. — Limiting stress and maintaining a strong relationship with a veterinarian are vital for a rancher's success in fighting bovine respiratory disease.
Several years ago, John Hambrick, owner of Rafter H Ranch, wanted to know how prevalent health issues like BRD and bovine viral diarrhea virus were in his cow herd, so he started implementing a testing program. Based on the results, he could make culling decisions and management changes.
"We were able to get a baseline for the herd and then develop a vaccination program based on the recommendations of my veterinarian, Dr. Kevin Fenton, which enabled us to basically eliminate our disease sources in-house," Hambrick said.
Determining whether disease is a problem in a cow herd or from any purchased cattle through testing is something Jody Wade, senior veterinary consultant at Boehringer Ingelheim, also recommends.
"You can buy some of your problems, so testing is something that you definitely need to plan for when you're buying replacement heifers and bulls," Wade said.
"Screen those cattle to ensure they're not persistently infected with BVDV or any other type of virus that they can bring into your operation."
Hambrick is a third-generation rancher in the wooded hills of eastern Oklahoma who raises commercial Angus cattle mixed with Simmental and Hereford genetics. The herd is divided into two-thirds fall calving and one-third spring calving.
"The cattle are happy here," Hambrick said. "And I think that we've matched our animals to the ecosystem they live in now."
Routine Vaccination
Building immunity gives cattle a strong first line of defense against BRD and other diseases.
"Immunity starts with healthy cows and creating an environment in utero where calves can thrive," Wade said.
"After calves are born, we want to make sure they get quality colostrum, so they can build antibodies against those diseases that they're going to battle.
"Once calves get old enough, we can start a vaccination protocol with the right products at the right time, so that we can continue protecting calves through the next phase."
Wade advises cattle producers to work with their veterinarian similarly to how the Rafter H Ranch and Fenton have collaborated on a vaccination protocol.
"The vaccines that I use to keep my cattle healthy have been recommended to me by Dr. Fenton," Hambrick said.
"He lives in my area, so he's familiar with our challenges. If something new comes down the road that he likes and recommends it to me, I'm all for it. I trust him 100%."
Hambrick and Fenton work together to coordinate vaccinations with his herd's reproductive schedule.
"The vaccine I use, PYRAMID, is wonderful for addressing respiratory disease, and we just get such a good response out of it that there's no reason for me to change," Hambrick said.
"I personally can see as much immunity coverage with a single dose of the modified-live vaccine we use as I was getting with two and three doses of the old killed vaccines."
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In addition to running cows, Hambrick occasionally buys preconditioned calves to run as stockers, depending on markets and forage availability.
A recent set of stockers he bought received the same vaccine protocol as his own calves, and he was pleased with the results.
"They made it all the way through the grow yard and to the feedlot with zero death loss," he said. "That protocol not only works on a farm with a known source of cattle, but also unknown sources of commingled calves."
Just as important as having a vaccination protocol that works is having a veterinarian you can depend on to provide you with the necessary input.
"You've got to have a relationship with your vet," Hambrick said. "You've got to have somebody at the other end of that phone who will answer when you call. Sure, we've been doing this for a long time, but things still come up."
Stress Reduction
"We manage for stress because, of course, naturally, you're going to get it," the rancher added.
One of the best ways to reduce stress is to minimize the number of times cattle need to be worked each year, by performing all necessary practices, when possible, at a few key times.
Building calf immunity with a vaccine program can also help reduce the need to pull sick animals for treatment.
Docile cattle are also key. Hambrick has made docility one of the key genetic parameters he looks for in bulls and when making replacement decisions.
"We're not in a situation where we're triggering a response to create BRD," he said. "We're tickled with the way things are right now. Not saying I don't ever 'doctor.' Sure we do. We've got 450 pairs."
Hambrick's calves may need treatment when they are young and still with cows, because of a stress challenge like weather.
However, because of the low-stress environment, paired with a routine whole-herd vaccination program, calf health has improved overall.
"It's not uncommon at weaning to never doctor a calf," Hambrick said. "As far as a wreck, we've avoided the risks."
Even the best management practices and vaccine protocols can't prevent BRD entirely, so having a treatment plan is necessary.
Wade recommends watching calves for any symptoms and treating them as soon as possible.
"If we can catch them early, we can get ahead of that disease," he said. "As far as antibiotics are concerned, choosing an antibiotic that we know has a broad spectrum of coverage and gets into the lungs quickly to kill bacteria is important. It also needs to have a long duration, so that we don't have to come back and re-treat."
By emphasizing stress reduction and vaccinations, the Rafter H Ranch has been able to see a sizable impact.
Calves wean off the mature cows, averaging over 600 pounds, while calves from first-calf heifers are just above 500 pounds and with few treatments across the herd.
"As we look forward to the next calf crop, going from here on out, our BRD plan will be to continue our vaccination protocol as we have now, combining that with minimal stress, adequate nutrition and the genetics we have in place," Hambrick said.
Biosecurity Guidance For Keepers Attending Shows And Events
Attending, or exhibiting livestock, at local, county and national agricultural shows, predominantly throughout the summer, is the highlight of the year for many livestock farmers.
However, attendance at these events – particularly those exhibiting animals – does carry a certain level of biosecurity risk for farms back at home.
The largest shows can see hundreds of thousands of people, and thousands of livestock, gather together, often for a number of days, before returning to their farms at home.
Unfortunately, this gathering and mixing of people and stock provides a significant number of opportunities for infectious agents to be transferred between holdings.
This can occur either through the direct mixing of stock at shows, or through the transport of infectious agents on people, vehicles or objects.
Livestock farmers will likely be aware that some biosecurity measures to prevent the spread of certain diseases are already in place at most shows.
These include the separation of MV (Maedi Visna) accredited and none-MV sheep, and the separation of cattle in line with the cattle health scheme diseases (Bovine Viral Diarrhea, Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis and Leptospirosis).
Possible modes of disease transmission at shows Mixing with other stockOften livestock at shows are housed in pens or cubicles directly adjacent to stock that have arrived from other holdings. They're then further mixed when exhibited in the ring for judging.
This provides opportunities for direct transmission between animals.
Shared housing and communal water supplies can also present opportunities for the transfer of pathogens through aerosol, oral, fomite and vector routes.
Passing infection on when returning homeThe risk to livestock health is not solely limited to those animals being exhibited at shows.
Many diseases have an incubation period where an animal is infectious before exhibiting any clinical symptoms.
It's therefore important to consider the risk that infected stock returning home from a show could pass the infection on to other members of the flock/herd before any signs of infection are even visible.
Human interaction with animals, people and objectsYou may not be exhibiting livestock, but many shows offer the opportunity for visitors to interact directly with livestock. Visitors can walk through the pens where livestock are housed and touch the animals, presenting the opportunity for disease agents to pass to hands, clothing and footwear.
Even if you do not interact directly with livestock at shows, contact with other people, vehicles and objects can be a source of infection that can be taken home.
Follow these steps to reduce the biosecurity risk associated with attending and exhibiting at shows:
Before the show
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