Bovine Respiratory Disease

This collaborative project will be conducted by researchers at Cornell, Oregon State University, and Washington State University. This project will be looking at two primary items. One, dairy calf housing and how it affects antibiotic resistance, and two, dairy communication, who makes the decisions, who creates protocols, who does the work, who makes sure the […]

Authored by: D Moore and E Field The cow‐calf producer doesn’t just sell calves. They are the first link in the chain of supplying beef to the consumer. What is sometimes forgotten is that what happens on the ranch doesn’t stay on the ranch but can continue through to the feedlot or slaughterhouse and onto […]

Preconditioning is a calf management program to prepare weaned calves to enter a stocker operation or be placed directly in a feed yard. Preconditioning activities include: implementation of an animal health protocol for vaccinations and parasite control, dehorning, castration, weaning, and transitioning calves to a roughage andgrain ration fed in feed bunks for a specified […]

Bovine respiratory disease complex (BRD), sometimes called shipping fever and pneumonia, is an economically important disease and a leading cause of death loss in beef cattle in North America. Survey data suggest that respiratory disease accounts for approximately 9 percent of all calf death losses in the United States (NAHMS, 2011). Bovine respiratory disease is […]

Authored by: S. Kerr, T. Hudson, A. Allen and S. Neibergs The goal of low‐stress weaning techniques is to minimize negative stress caused by nutritional, environmental, physical and social changes experienced by calves at weaning time. Stress increases cortisol levels, which reduces immune system performance and can predispose cattle or (calves) to illness from a […]

Authored by: A. Allen and D. Llewellyn Bovine respiratory disease complex (BRD) is the most economically damaging disease of beef cattle in North America (Griffin 1997). An appropriate immune response to the infectious agents (pathogens) that cause BRD is thought to be an important factor that leads to decreased incidence of BRD in cattle. Vaccinating […]

Authors: S.M. Smith, C. Beus, and D. Nelson Stressors of weaning, transportation, processing and handling can significantly impact an animal’s exposure and susceptibility to respiratory diseases through the various stages of beef cattle production (Hodgson et al and Mitchell et al). Decreasing stress during these management times with low‐stress cattle handling can help reduce the […]

Although we can try to keep the herd healthy by preventing disease, sometimes we still have to treat and how effective our treatment is depends on a number of factors.

What is biosecurity? Biosecurity includes those set of management practices that prevent disease from entering the farm or ranch or prevent disease from being transmitted between animals. When you look at a cowcalf ranch, the extensive nature of the range the cattle inhabit can make the thought of biosecurity impractical. However, even large ranches can […]