New diseases will inevitably arise, requiring new treatments and the funding for their research and development.

It is with a heavy heart that I heard recently of the many federal agricultural research facilities that will be shut down.

How do we test new products or develop new varieties of plants and test and validate growing or harvesting techniques without qualified researchers trying to answer these difficult questions and work doggedly to make the livestock industry safe?

The two protozoal diseases I am referring to are coccidiosis and cryptosporidiosis.

WHY IT MATTERS: The extra-label use of toltrazuril has nearly eliminated two costly protozoal diseases in Western Canadian calf herds, but the closure of federal research facilities threatens the pipeline for future treatments and on-label approvals

Coccidia

Coccidiosis was once a very common disease in slightly older calves and feedlot animals. In the last several years of practice, it was getting rarer and rarer to see a case. The big question is why the improvement?

Both protozoal diseases have a life cycle that starts with an egg or oocyst, then lives in the intestinal cells, destroying them before the eggs start to appear in the manure. With coccidia, this whole life cycle takes about a month. Prevention or control starts with treating before animals are likely to contract it.

This condition can be largely prevented with ionophore products such as Rumensin or Bovatech provided in complete feed rations in the feedlot or put into minerals for calves or mixed into pellets.

All cows carry some coccidia, but it is the calves that get clinical disease. Cows will increase shedding before calving, which is why producers used to treat their cow herd to prevent shedding and infection of newborns. This has changed considerably in the last 10 to 20 years.

A product called toltrazuril (Baycox) was developed as a specific preventive for coccidiosis. It is given more as a preventive with a long withdrawal period, but is also used on young animals, and specifically for cocci in pigs and sheep as well as calves.

Veterinarians often prescribe antimicrobials such as potentiated sulphonamides If cocci get out of control, but by then the damage has already been done and calves suffer a big setback. Prevention is key so that fewer antimicrobials are used.

My big worry is that in these antibiotic-free programs, there was talk about ionophores falling into disregard, which would be a very bad move long term.

Practices such as manure cleaning help with biosecurity, of course, but the oocysts are very small and very resistant in the environment —a very pesky thing to totally eliminate.

Crypto

The other protozoal disease is cryptosporidiosis, which these days commonly comes to mind if you hear of a bad scours outbreak in a vaccinated herd.

Very bad diarrhea in slightly older calves is hard to treat and recover from and is very contagious because one clinical case quickly spews out millions of eggs that other calves can ingest.

This is also the disease that people can catch from handling calves, and many a technician at a clinic or farm worker has contracted crypto over the years. That’s another good reason to prevent it. It is likely the most common zoonosis that people contract from cattle besides ringworm.

Double hit

Veterinarians in Manitoba figured out about 20 years ago that toltrazuril works to prevent cocci and crypto. They started compounding the toltrazuril in capsules for oral use and these diseases pretty much disappeared.

I don’t know what percentage of herds have been prescribed this treatment, but it is quite high in many beef-producing regions across Western Canada. It is now compounded by an Alberta company for veterinarians and given as an oral pill at birth or shortly after. This is something that your veterinarian would have to prescribe.

Off the label

Toltrazuril is the best example I can give of an extra-label usage of a product to treat disease that went viral — word of mouth — between veterinarians. This also means our friends in the medical profession don’t have to treat crypto in people.

The disease is still around and recently made the news when it got into the water supply of an Indigenous community. It would be nice if research could eventually be done to allow on-label use of this medication.

However, in light of the recent closure of federal research facilities, we may need more products to go extra label through our veterinarians, which puts a lot of pressure on them.

The good news is that these medications are used only on young animals, so the long withdrawal requirement becomes a moot point because they are six months or more away from slaughter.

If you have had trouble with either crypto or cocci — even one case — ask your veterinarian for their thoughts on using toltrazuril in its many forms.

The post Two protozoal diseases nearly disappeared from herds — here’s what made the difference appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

These can be smouldering problems and occur year after year. I have spent many a time over my career discussing treatment of scours, pneumonia or navel infection (and then, ideally, working on a preventive strategy).

Initially it might start with isolation methods for the specific bug and then, if there is more than one case, determining the source of infection. During an on-farm visit, a veterinarian might look at everything from nutrition and body condition score to the vigour of sucking in calves. With these three diseases there are many common denominators, such as whether calves are getting enough colostrum.

I know you have heard this many times but if in doubt, tube calves with colostrum. Most producers have a case of the dried commercial colostrum on hand to at least supplement twins, hard pulls, calves on cows with bad udders, and delayed calving breech births. You can either milk the mother or use the good-quality colostrum supplements such as HeadStart. Generally better-quality products cost more but provide more immunoglobulins.

Not getting enough colostrum may lead to the first case of the three main calfhood diseases. If not isolated the first case may lead to 10 cases (especially when it comes to scours).

If you are having repeat cases, I think it wise to have your veterinarian visit and walk through what happens leading up to calving, where the calving grounds are, and how the pairs are kept until rejoining the larger group. It is in this interim period where we get these diseases starting.

Of course those calving later in May on grass eliminate some of the biosecurity or stress issues that happen from calving in winter or during the wet spring. Freak rainstorms can occur but weather is a little more in our favour.

Biosecurity for these diseases takes on many faces — from vaccination of the cows for scours prevention to using respiratory (mainly intranasal) vaccines for pneumonia given in the first few days after birth. Vaccination can be one of the best forms of bio­security and although it won’t eliminate all scours or pneumonia cases, it will prevent some and decrease the severity of others. I would not go without either of these preventive programs and the larger the number of cows, the more critical prevention becomes.

Other biosecurity measures include starting with a clean calving ground (preferably one cleaned from the previous year and left to desiccate in the sun), using boot dips where appropriate, and cleaning and disinfecting calf carts or sleds, calf pullers, calving equipment, and maternity pens.

I am a real believer in lots of bedding as well as creep sheds where the newborn calves can avoid the cold and stressors of adult cattle. We know calves love these creep areas (as anyone who has gone looking for them during a snowstorm knows) and are conducive to avoiding disease transmission.

It is always important to not allow the calving barn temperature to get too high. Just above freezing (essentially fridge temperature if possible) will not allow infectious organisms to multiply in the environment. Totally cleaning the pen daily may not be as good as adding lots of bedding and getting a bedding pack started. Experiment with different bedding materials and see what works best for your operation.

With navel infection, think about what the navel is touching right after birth. I am not a huge fan of handling or spraying navels (I used to have more trouble with producers using an irritating product and doing more harm than good). Backwards calves are more prone to navel infection because the umbilicus rips off very close to the body and that goes for C-sections as well.

Reducing incidence of these diseases requires investigative veterinary medicine. Often there is not one easy solution but several little improvements could decrease the clinical cases, and that is essentially our goal.

Spending time and potentially some money may eliminate future cases or minimize treatment costs by reducing the need for things such as antibiotics, NSAIDs or electrolytes. We will never get rid of every case but our goal should be to substantially reduce them.

If we do need to treat, the quicker we identify cases, the quicker the response will be. I like checking calves in the early morning when they look their worst. It can make it easier to catch cases and impose isolation (if needed) earlier. Some producers have even welded a handle to the end of their calf catcher leg hook to facilitate catching and treating immediately on identification (especially for scours ).

Here’s to a healthy calving season.

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Doug Wray believes in keeping newborn calves separated as much as possible from other two-week and older calves to avoid livestock congestion and dramatically reduce the risk of congregated calves developing and spreading scours.

And for the past several years the plan has worked.

The Irricana rancher has developed this calving-on-pasture system over the past 10 years. In his year-round grazing system, his herd of about 300 bred cows begin calving May 1 on swath grazing and then by May 10 the pregnant cows move to grass and the first batch of cows with calves stay behind.

The first grass pasture is 160 acres in size, divided into eight 20-acre paddocks.

“The herd is managed in one group on pasture for about two weeks before we make the first split,” says Wray. At roughly the first two-week mark, cows with calves (usually about 120 head) “are taken to fresh pasture in one direction, while the bred cows head to new grass in another direction.”

Wray essentially runs two herds at calving season. One group of pregnant cows, that gets smaller with each passing week, and one group of cow-calf pairs that gets larger over the calving season. The pregnant cows are managed on one quarter divided into paddocks, while the cow-calf pairs are managed on another quarter about three-quarters of a mile away. That quarter is also divided into paddocks.

Separating pregnant cows from cow-calf pairs is determined by how fast grass is growing and how many cows have calved.

“On average once we get into mid- and later May we are probably making a split every three or four days to a week,” says Wray. “It is very much a read and react approach.”

Once he has somewhere between 50 and 75 cow-calf pairs in a paddock on the pregnant herd side of the rotation, he trails those cow-calf pairs over to the pair’s quarter section where they join earlier cow-calf pairs.

“The overall principle is to keep both groups of cattle moving to fresh ground,” says Wray. “Quite often we have an environment where we have plenty of fresh growing grass and the sun is shining, and it is very favourable conditions for calving. If we run into a couple of days where it is cold and wet, we won’t move a group of new cow-calf pairs from the pregnant herd side of the rotation over to the pairs rotation. We’ll wait.”

The rotation is good for calf health and also fits with Wray’s pasture management objectives — as grass is rapidly growing he likes to move cattle through quickly to take the first clip off before they return later in the season.

The herd’s breeding season usually runs about 54 days, so the length of calving season is typically one week on either side of that period. By the end of calving season, the herd will be regrouped in a main herd of cow-calf pairs to continue through a rotational grazing system for the summer.

“Our primary objective is to keep newborn calves from being all bunched together and to make sure we’re always calving on fresh ground,” says Wray.

The system has produced excellent results.

“Scours and some of the other newborn calf issues, such as respiratory disease, just aren’t a concern.”

The strategy for healthy calves is to keep newborns separated from older calves and always keep the calving herd moving to new ground to avoid a buildup of disease bacteria.

“The system seems to work well for us because we are calving later, calving on pasture and we are also moving cattle to make sure they have fresh grass,” says Wray.

Sandhills system

The 2014 Western Canada Cow-Calf Survey reported that scours and pneumonia accounted for about 30 per cent of calf deaths. The 2017 survey attributed about 25 per cent of calf deaths to scours. Other research has found performance of calves treated for scours is compromised, resulting in weaning weights anywhere from 15 to 30 pounds lighter.

The overall cost of calf death loss, treatment costs, and reduced performance in a 100-head beef herd with a 20 per cent incidence of scours has been calculated at about $4,000 in a year.

Wray’s system aligns with the Sandhills Calving System developed at the University of Nebraska about 20 years ago. Many Canadian veterinarians and other animal health specialists are encouraging more producers to consider the system, or some variation, to reduce the risk of calf losses due to disease.

Newborn calves commingled with older calves — particularly if concentrated in a relatively small area and if weather conditions are cool and wet — is the ideal scenario for the development of a scours outbreak.

The cycle of scours at calving often originates with mature beef cows as they carry the scours pathogen. Newborn calves often pick up the pathogen and may not become sick, but their guts serve as pathogen multipliers. These calves shed an increasing load of pathogen onto the calving ground, then newborn calves come along and pick up the heavy load of the bacteria. The dose load of pathogens overwhelms the calf’s ability to resist disease.

If a beef herd calves on the same area year after year, the soil can also be contaminated with scour-causing pathogens.

“Among the first considerations — producers need to have enough land available to handle each group of cows and calves over the calving season,” says Dr. Elizabeth Homerosky of Veterinary Agri-Health Services in Airdrie. “The herd should be split about every two weeks with the cows that haven’t calved moved to a fresh pasture. If a producer has a 60-day breeding season, for example, they would need to have planned for five pastures with adequate holding capacity.”

Proper fencing to provide separation of the calved and to-calve herds is important. Homerosky says a single-strand electric wire to divide pastures usually isn’t sufficient as calves can cross under the wire and mix.

Depending on calving season dates, water may need to be available quite early in the spring in each of the pastures.

Newborn calves are most vulnerable to some of the scour-causing pathogens within the first weeks of life, but their immunity grows as each day passes, provided they received adequate and good-quality colostrum at birth, says Homerosky. Once calves reach about four weeks of age their immunity system has developed sufficiently to fight most scour-causing pathogens.

Variations

While the original Sandhills Calving System involves a pasture sequence that leaves cow-calf pairs behind as the yet-to-calve cattle are moved to fresh ground, there are variations. Homerosky has worked to develop a modified Sandhills Calving System with producers who prefer to keep the calving herd close in to corrals and calving facilities and move the cow-calf pairs to new ground. These may be smaller beef operations, purebred producers, or farms with a smaller land base.

“I often refer to it as the Foothills Calving System,” says Homerosky.

This variation is just the reverse described in the Sandhills system and Homerosky recommends cow-calf pairs be moved away from the main pregnant cow herd within 24 hours of calves being born.

For example, if 10 calves are born today, as soon as they have nursed and are ambulatory, move that group to the new paddock or first nursery pasture within 24 hours. If 10 calves are born tomorrow, do the same thing — move those pairs into the paddock or nursery pasture to join up with the first day’s calves.

Keep moving cow-and-newborn-calf pairs into that first nursery pasture for 10 days to two weeks (or before, if the pasture reaches capacity), then add another nursery pasture as needed.

“Newborn calves do not shed any scours pathogens in their manure within the first 24 hours of life, so that’s why it is important to move those calves within 24 hours,” says Homerosky.

By moving the pairs, it limits their exposure to any pathogens that may be present around the main cow herd and they are also not adding to the pathogen load in the calving area.

If by some chance a case of scours does develop, the Foothills system allows a producer to contain or manage the outbreak to within a small group of animals, rather than the whole herd.

The post A simple system to fit the scourge of scours appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Cow-calf producers most often deal with scours, septicemia, respiratory disease, and joint or navel ill,” said Dr. Claire Windeyer, a veterinarian and professor and researcher at the University of Calgary.

“Septicemia often looks like a severe case of scours, except there is no diarrhea associated with it. In other cases, septicemia may present itself as calves found dead because the disease advances so quickly.”

Risks for disease can be thought of in terms of a triad including the pathogen (the bug), the host (the calf), and the environment.

“Pathogen risk factors include the certain bacteria or viruses in a producer’s herd. The pathogens that cause calf disease are usually already present on farm, so producers should focus on the other two parts of the triad. The host risk factors include things like: Did the calf get enough colostrum? Was it a difficult birth? Was the calf born into a snowbank?

“All those things can put calves at higher risk for disease. In terms of environmental factors, those include things like winter storms, or milder winters where there is a lot of mud.”

In terms of preventing diseases in young calves, the biggest difference between the herds that manage their calf health well and other herds is the planning put into the calving season, said Windeyer. The effort to wean healthy, heavy calves starts long before the calving season and before calves get sick, she added.

“Start to plan at the breeding season the year before by selecting the right cows for your herd, and checking the body condition score of your cows,” said Windeyer. “Going into the calving season, producers should be thinking about what their goals are — and from there, what their protocols and approach will be.”

Windeyer recommends having a clear ‘game plan’ and making sure all the equipment and plans are in place before the calving season.

“Having a plan allows producers to make sure they are able to mitigate all three parts of the risk factor triad. This includes things like making sure cows are vaccinated, good colostrum management, and providing bedding to keep calves warm and dry.”

A webinar given by Windeyer on this topic on Dec. 8 can be found at beefresearch.ca.

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Martin Misener, a vet and chair of the Ontario Swine Health Advisory Board, challenged the hog industry to not get complacent about stopping PED.

Misener noted he had heard from people who wondered why the meeting was focused on PED as the number of outbreaks has dwindled. Last fall and winter (November 2015 to March 2016), at the time of year when outbreaks are more likely to happen, there were nine outbreaks in Ontario, compared to 43 from January to March 2014.

“It’s human nature to revert to complacency,” he said. “Folks, we are there. We are sitting on little volcanoes and big volcanoes of PED that could erupt at farm level at any time.”

The PED virus causes scours leading to extensive mortality for young piglets and longer-term reproductive issues for sows.

Despite some recent complacency, Misener said the ability of the industry to keep the virus under control is a good news story.

The industry has co-ordinated controlled regional PED elimination programs called ARC+E (Area Control and Elimination) in the industry. They have worked well, other than for a few individual farms that have not co-operated.

“Overall we have had great compliance,” says Misener. “We have had 150 PED situations, with only having a couple that are pesky.”

— John Greig is a field editor for Glacier FarmMedia based at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him at @jgreig on Twitter.

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“Dairy, swine and poultry are in barns, so biosecurity is easier to control, whereas in the beef industry, the cattle are managed on bigger land bases and pasture, so it’s a harder concept to think about,” said Ceanna Tannas, a registered animal health technologist with Veterinary Agri-Health Services in Airdrie.

Maintaining proper biosecurity helps maintain animal health and prevent disease. Consumers are interested in biosecurity and programs like the verified beef program have biosecurity components. Since cattle are more valuable right now, people are doing anything they can to ensure that their animals are healthy.

In order to get a proper handle on biosecurity, it’s worthwhile to think about it in terms of big and small items, said Tannas, a fourth-generation rancher who raises Black Angus cattle near Water Valley.

New arrivals

The big picture involves quarantining any new animals that come to the farm for about two weeks, to see if they get sick in that time. Do your homework, buy your animals from reputable places and get the animal’s vaccination records.

“That’s a big thing,” said Tannas. “Before you buy new animals, you want to get their records ahead of time, so you minimize the risk of them getting sick.”

People in the beef industry might not think about all the people who come on and off their farm.

“You have to start thinking about how these people can introduce disease as well,” she said.

Disease can be introduced when people visit the farm, such as in the case of the bull sale. That’s where planning ahead can make all the difference.

“When all those vehicles are coming directly onto your place, you don’t want them coming into your corrals or near the animals,” said Tannas. “You probably want them to park in a field.”

You can tell people to wear clean boots or shoes, and include this message in all your advertising promoting the sale. Alerting people ahead of time can reduce the risk that they could be offended by the request. You can also have a boot dip at the entrance to your place.

“Try to explain to people that you’re trying to be biosecure,” she said.

If you’re buying or shipping animals, you should always request a clean truck that has been hot washed and sanitized. Always ask for a clean truck, instead of assuming the truck will be clean.

“Always request that it is done and don’t allow truckers to scrape out on your land,” she said.

Avoid sharing

Biosecure practices can also be implemented in the small, day-to-day treatments. Calves that need to be treated with oral electrolytes for scours are usually treated with a bag or a bottle with an esophageal feeder.

“What people may not think about is that these same bags are often used for milk when a calf is first born and needs colostrum,” said Tannas.

She advises using separate bags for each procedure, and the bags should be clearly labelled, even if they are washed between procedures.

She also recommends disposal needles.

“A lot of ranchers buy multi-use needles,” she said. “You can use them more than once, but that gives producers the wrong idea that they last longer than disposal needles,” she said. Tannas recommends buying disposal needles, and changing them every 10-15 animals. Disposal needles are aluminum, so they can be detected in carcasses if they break off, which isn’t the case for multi-use needles.

When calves are scouring in a pasture, you can reduce your risk of transferring it to another pasture by washing your boots between pastures.

“It’s a small thing you can do, and you just need some disinfectant soap to do it,” said Tannas.

The team at Veterinary Agri-Health services has been talking more with their clients about bio-security and has been giving them some standard operating procedures to give them some ideas about what they should be doing.

Anyone who is thinking more about biosecurity should write down their standard operating procedures and goals.

“If you write it down, you’re more likely to do it,” said Tannas. Producers should also talk to their veterinarians, and may want to look for more information in the Beef Code of Practice, on the verified beef production website, or in the National Canadian Beef Cattle On-Farm Biosecurity Standard, which can be found by a web search for “National Canadian Beef Cattle on-farm biosecurity standard.”

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“We looked at the correlation between the length of the calving season and mortality, and for every extra day, the mortality between a week of age and weaning went up by half a per cent,” said Dr. Claire Windeyer, who began surveying calf management practices in more than 250 cow-calf herds last summer.

“It does have impacts on your bottom line at the end of the day.”

The risk is a small one, though. In the herds surveyed, calf mortality rates were between one and two per cent.

“A half a per cent of that is a very small increment,” she said.

But longer calving seasons have other implications on calf performance that can’t be ignored, said Windeyer. Most producers had a six- to 12-week calving season, but some calved over the course of six months, leading to “exhaustion of the environment.”

“If you’re calving into the same area over a six-month period, you’re going to have buildup of manure, waste feed, and mud, especially this time of the year. You really start working that environment quite hard.”

In that environment, calves have increased exposure to pathogens, such as the bugs that cause scours, and that can lead to significant financial losses.

“If you have a newborn calf being born into a pasture that’s had calves on it for the last three to six months, that cow is going to be exposed to a lot more pathogens than the first calf born,” she said. “You get more and more challenges in the environment the longer that season goes on.”

Timing of calving also played a role in the risk of calf mortality, depending on location, facilities, and weather, she said.

Timing of calving is also key and Windeyer found March was the worst time for bovine respiratory disease.

Producers who calved in that month had six per cent more respiratory disease in their herds compared to ranches that calved in January and February. The lowest incidence of respiratory disease was during May and June calving.

“In March, you don’t know what the weather is going to do. In January and February, at least you can anticipate some cold, dry weather,” she said.

“It’s all about having the appropriate facilities to be able to manage… the weather that does arise in the season that you’re calving.”

• From the Canadian Cattlemen: Be prepared for calving season

Colostrum also key

Colostrum is also critical for calf performance, said Windeyer.

“We all know they’re born naive and relatively unprotected, and that colostrum contains not only important antibodies but also good calories, minerals, vitamins, and other immunity components.”

Producers who checked their cows’ udders to make sure the calves were feeding saw a 35 per cent decrease in mortality in the first seven days of life, while those who provided colostrum to calves saw a 24 per cent decrease in mortality between one week to weaning.

Frozen beef cow colostrum can be a good alternative to fresh for producers who need to supplement their calves’ diets, but Windeyer cautions against dairy colostrum and other supplemental products.

“The quality of good dairy colostrum is usually poorer than beef colostrum,” she said. “It’s much more dilute than what our beef cows produce, so if you’re using dairy colostrum, you need to get a lot more to get enough antibodies in it.”

And for some replacement products, calves need to drink up to 16 litres to gain the right amount of necessary antibodies.

“No beef calf is going to drink 16 litres in the first 24 hours.”

Veterinarians can check the quality of the colostrum to make sure it meets the nutritional needs of newborn calves.

“Not all colostrum is created equal, and you can’t always tell just by looking at it. If it’s more thick, it tends to be better quality, but that’s not always the case.”

Producers should have replacement colostrum products on hand and “be wary” of their storage methods for frozen colostrum.

“If it sits on the counter for half a day and then you stick it in the freezer, the quality of that colostrum has gone down substantially,” said Windeyer. “After about two hours, the bacterial growth in that colostrum really ramps up. If you’re going to store colostrum, put it in the freezer as quickly as possible.”

Producers who used frozen colostrum from off their farm saw a 68 per cent increase in calf mortality within the first 24 hours — likely a result of scrambling to find a source of colostrum, said Windeyer.

“By the time you get it into the calf, that calf is probably quite a bit older than it should have been when it got its first dose of colostrum,” she said.

“Their guts start closing within four hours, and within 24 hours, they’re not absorbing any antibodies. The sooner you can get it in them, the better.”

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