Tools for Veterinarians and Producers to Enhance Prevention of Calf Death and Disease

Background

Disease control strategies are the core of health management of beef herds. Preventive health management can reduce antimicrobial use, improve animal performance and welfare, and ideally, optimize producer profitability.

Implementation and effectiveness of health management practices are dependent on producers’ knowledge of and commitment to the disease control strategies involved. Producers report they are unlikely to comply with recommendations if they do not see the value for their operation. Furthermore, there is a lack of accessible information about available products and recommended practices that are most effective. Veterinarians may lack information about recommended practices or not relay this information to their clients effectively. Producers who do not have a relationship with a veterinarian are even more likely to struggle to access and implement effective animal care and health management strategies.

Operations that experience exceptionally high calf morbidity and mortality rates, largely attributable to atypical environmental factors, express that they were unaware of their management vulnerabilities. They also report that they could not access the help they wanted from their veterinaries. In such cases, veterinarians may have been too busy or required additional information in order to provide consultative-level services to beef producers, particularly in mixed veterinary practices. Providing tools to both veterinarians and producers to give them easy access to pertinent information and facilitate discussions about effective management practices for individual operations would help improve cattle health, welfare, and productivity.

Objectives

• Assess and summarize the evidence regarding the effectiveness of biosecurity and biocontainment, vaccination, colostrum management, breeding and calving season management, and nutritional management practices in preventing calf mortality
• Assess and summarize the evidence on the effectiveness of management practices to prevent calf morbidity and mortality from NCD and BRD in cow-calf herds
• Determine which practices were most useful considering their effectiveness, ease of implementation, and economic feasibility and to define which practices should be included in a Decision Tool to facilitate discussions between producers and veterinarians

What they Did 

A group of experts (progressive producers, veterinarians, researchers) were surveyed and participated in focus groups to determine the most important recommended best management practices for calf health and survival. A systematic review of the literature on recommended best management practices was conducted. The information was compiled into easily accessible resources for producers and veterinarians.

The results were used to develop an early calfhood disease and mortality risk assessment tool. This tool, structured as a checklist, included questions about disease control strategies to help producers and their veterinarians assess where opportunities exist to improve health management on that particular operation. The tool was piloted on 9 cow-calf operations, and all veterinarians and producers reported they found it helpful and easy to use.

What You Learned

Although strong evidence for most practices was lacking, a few practices were supported by either scientific studies or expert consensus. Some recommended practices were conflicting in terms of implementation on farm.

Colostrum: Herds that intervened with colostrum in assisted calves or checked the fullness of the udder of cows were reported to have a lower mortality risk than those not using these practices. Tubing or bottle feeding calves colostrum when they had not nursed was prioritized by experts as a practice that was “always useful for all herds”.

Calving Season: Early calving herds, or those calving in winter, had a higher reported risk of mortality or NCD than those calving later or in spring. Herds with longer calving seasons were also reported to have a higher risk of mortality than those with shorter ones. However, producers who participated in the pilot of the Tool indicated that calving heifers before cows was incompatible with having a calving season less than 80 days. Many producers also indicated they were willing to consider segregating calves by age (e.g. using nursey pastures) during the calving season.

Vaccination: Scientific evidence about vaccination was highly variable and considered unreliable within the systematic review. However, administering vaccines against clostridial pathogens was considered by experts as a practice that was “always useful for all herds”. Producers in the pilot study of the Tool shared a hesitation about vaccinating pregnant dams against diarrhea-causing agents during late pregnancy but stated they were willing to vaccinate calves.             

Nutrition: Calves from herds that did not supplement with vitamin E and selenium at birth were reported to have higher odds of mortality than those from herds where this practice was used. The Tool was said to be helpful in supporting discussions between the veterinarian and producer by those who participated in the pilot study.

The Tool was said to be helpful in supporting discussions between the veterinarian and producer by those who participated in the pilot study.

What It Means

This work summarized the available evidence about management practices to control and prevent calfhood illness and death. While the scientific literature was extremely variable and many studies had a high risk of bias, compiling information about practices that were consistently associated with reducing risk of disease along with expert consensus and benchmarking data (reported elsewhere) helped to develop a Tool that could be effectively used by veterinarians and cow-calf producers to guide decisions about management practices to improve calf health and survival.