Dairy Herd Management Articles:
Heifers and mastitis
Heifers that contract mastitis are usually detected after freshening or sometime in early lactation. However, these animals could have had an intramammary infection for more than a year before being diagnosed. Milk-producing tissue in the udder develops during the first pregnancy, making it extremely important to protect heifers from mastitis pathogens.
Why do vaccines fail?
Dick Wallace,
New BVDV resources
A new online bovine viral diarrhea virus information resource is available.
Transition period can reduce respiratory illness
Too many changes at eight weeks of life cause stress, reduce immunity and cause respiratory problems in calves, explains Al Kertz, nutritionist with ANDHIL LLC.
USDA grants $16.8 million for TB eradication efforts
Protect heifers from BVD infection
Can you assure your clients that their heifers — and their unborn calves — will return home without any new infectious diseases?
How to avoid endotoxin overload in calves
Avoid endotoxin overload in calves through proper vaccine handling and other strategies.
Mastitis prevention begins at birth
Anytime a heifer freshens with mastitis, you failed somewhere earlier in life.
These two viruses commonly found
Whether or not these two pathogens cause severe, mild, or even no clinical cases of diarrhea in calves depends on your management.
Keep vaccine expectations realistic
Your first concern should be to choose those that do no harm.
Control winter teat problems
Learn why bacteria doesn’t stop growing in stall beds even in the winter.
Check calves’ ears when resting
Calves in the early stages of mycoplasma pneumonia will perk up their ears at feeding time, too.
Keep calves’ routine consistent
Doing so can help prevent clostridium problems in calves
Stop the spread of salmonella
If you could do one thing to minimize an outbreak of salmonella, keep fresh cows away from sick, treated and lame cows.
Disease-control tips you can use
Here are four ideas you should use to help minimize the transfer of disease with calves.
Calves will forecast diarrhea
Look for an increase in the calf’s temperature first.
High-risk animals need extra care
Grower-springer heifers have the highest risk for developing mastitis.
2 tools to assess neonatal dehydration
Measuring eyeball recession is an even better way to gauge dehydration in a calf.
Ideal oral electrolyte solution
Make sure the electrolyte solution you use can meet your calves’ needs.
Grow your herd by cutting calf mortality
Doing so could double your growth rate.
Consider group ear-notch testing for BVD
Check to see if the lab you use has experience doing group testing.
Dairy calf respiratory disease
Respiratory disease in young dairy calves can be a killer; tighten up management to prevent and reduce respiratory illness.
Start calves off right
Research has shown that disease rates for preweaned calves range from 1 percent to 50 percent on farm.
Reduce stress on newborns
Try this idea to help get newborns off to a good start in life.
Lead poisoning: A cause of sudden death in calves
The information presented in this Case Study is from Jerome Nietfeld, DVM, PhD, and Brad DeBey, DVM, PhD, Kansas State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, and appeared in the Kansas Veterinary Quarterly, Summer 2005.
Keep tabs on heifer mastitis
Dairy heifers are often the forgotten animals on the farm until they calve.
Score your calf-sanitation SOPs with this checklist
Take this quiz to find out how many of these SOPS you actually have in place.
You can prevent umbilical hernias
Make sure no one on your farm is taking short cuts when it comes to navel care.
Top 5 reasons calves get sick
Getting enough good-quality colostrum into a calf is just the starting point. Learn what other factors most often limit calf performance.
Scours booklet available
Learn what these five experts recommend on preventing and treating scours.
BVD in calves costs more than you think
Fifty percent of calves born persistently-infected with BVD will die within the first year of life.
When to trim heifer hooves
Use these guidelines to help determine when you should, and should not trim heifers’ hooves.
Stay on top of crypto
Ear-notch calves for BVD
If BVD shows up in the skin cells of an animal, there is a high likelihood that the animal is persistently infected.
Beware of averages
Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security by your average treatment rate. Did deeper into the numbers to determine what’s really going on.
You must have a plan for Mycoplasma bovis
Victor Mendes does what he can to stay on top of Mycoplasma bovis.
Treating heifer mastitis pays
Why you should consider treatment if you have a problem.
Do your heifers have mastitis?
Here’s how to determine if you have a problem.
Protect calves from Johne’s
Good colostrum management is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to preventing Johne’s transmission to calves.
Glove up for feeding time
Everyone wears nitrile gloves when it’s feeding time at Purvis Premier Calves near
11 steps to reduce calf scours
Use these ideas to improve your prevention plan for calf scours.
Test bull calves for BVDV, too
Ear-notching calves to test for bovine viral diarrhea virus (bvdv) is primarily done on heifer calves. However, if you truly want to eradicate BVDV from your herd, you need to test bull calves, too.
Watch what you’re buying
Just because a heifer calf you bought at the sale barn has its ears notched doesn’t always mean she was tested for bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV).
Guidelines for vaccinating calves
Vaccines are not a substitute for good calf management. However, when administered properly, they can be a useful disease-prevention strategy.
How to deal with a scours outbreak
Sometimes, no matter how many preventive measures you take, calf scours show up in the best-managed herds.
Conduct routine exams for heifer mastitis
It’s never to early to check for mastitis and teat damage in heifers.
Scouring calves need electrolytes and milk
When you take away milk and only feed electrolytes it can prolong the duration of the diarrhea.
Is your dry-cow program undermining calf health
Use this quiz to find out.
4 rules to get calves started right
If you do these four things, the bugs don’t have a chance to make your calves sick.
Ladle helps with dipping navels
New method of dipping navels provides better coverage and reduces the mess.
Can calves contract BSE?
Check out what the research has to say.
10 ways to improve calf health
Use these ideas to help you lower your treatment rate and mortality rate.
Use scoring tool to monitor calf health
Use this protocol to help find calves who are sick before they show clinical signs.
Pasteurization pays for these calf-raisers
Lower input cost, better health and more live calves underlie this management trend.
Is pasteurizing calf milk right for you?
Use this list of the most commonly asked questions and their answers to help you decide.
Simplified process for washing calf bottles
Try this idea to wash several calf bottles at the same time.
Only dip navels with tincture of iodine
Don’t take short cuts by using an teat dip containing iodine. You won’t get the same results.
Protect that newborn
It only takes a little manure ingested by a newborn to lead to illness — and sometimes death.
Don’t let heifer mastitis go untreated
The abnormally wet spring here in south Georgia was a blessing and a curse.
New calf care and biosecurity guides
These booklets are available in Spanish and English.
Track your scours rate
Use these three strategies to keep your calves’ scours rate in line.
Clothespins indicate treatments
Colored clothespins help employees keep track of which calves have received which treatments.
Lackadaisical ear-tagging signals problem
Contract-heifer-grower Lynn Neer has seen it over and over again — when ear tags weren’t applied properly at the farm of origin, it may mean that he has a problem animal on his hands.
Neonatal calf diarrhea
In the upper
Calves vs. scours and pneumonia: The survival challenge
It's little wonder that dairy calves get sick. The real surprise, according to
How to prevent calf scours
Use these ideas to help keep calf immunity high and disease challenge low.
How to prevent pneumonia
Use these nine ideas to help reduce the incidence of pneumonia on your dairy.
Get the lowdown on scours
To gain control of major outbreaks, you need to know the culprits that cause problems on your dairy.
Is your colostrum a health serum or bacterial soup?
While no one would knowingly seed their newborn calves' digestive systems with bacteria, that's exactly what can happen with incorrect colostrum handling.
Pre-treating heifers pays
Research shows that treating heifers before they freshen can help reduce mastitis incidence in some cases.
Step up lepto vaccines
New research shows that heifers can become carriers of leptospirosis before they reach eight months of age.
Color code esophageal feeders
Don’t make the mistake of using the same esophageal feeder to give fluids to a sick calf and then to deliver colostrum to a newborn calf.
Prevent heifer mastitis
Use these eight strategies to keep your heifers from becoming infected with mastitis before they freshen.
Reduce clostridia risk
Seven strategies you can use to protect the health of your calves.
Halt heifer mastitis
Here's how to control mastitis in heifers before they give their first drop of milk.
Prevent the "fresh heifer crash"
Picture this: A new dairy experiences a high incidence of retained fetal membranes, metritis, displaced abomasums and udder edema among newly fresh heifers. In addition, the heifers experience a tremendous loss of body condition the first week after calving.
Keep hands clean near calves
Clean hands is fundamental for controlling the spread of disease.
Dip umbilical cord
Use this preventative step to help ensure the health of your calves.
Fighting calf scours
Rarely does a week go by without a dairy producer asking me what treatment he should use for calf scours. However, before you and your veterinarian can evaluate treatment options, you must examine the calves and conduct laboratory tests to determine the cause, or causes, of the problem.
Protect your calves against mycoplasma
Use these practices to minimize the risk of your calves developing a mycoplasma-related illness.
Heifer raisers should focus on Johne’s, too
Johne’s disease most often affects older animals, says Charlie Elrod with Cargill Animal Nutrition, and formerly with the New York State Cattle Health Assurance Program.
Set heifer protocols by group
For many of my clients, heifers and calf management is an afterthought. Although the producers know that the young stock will be future money-makers on the dairy, their focus remains on the current money-makers - the cows.
BRSV vaccination critical
Canadian research conducted by John Ellis, veterinarian at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in
Keep calf equipment clean
If not cleaned properly, disease-causing organisms can reside on the bottles, pails and nipples you use to feed calves.
Uncover calf health problems
Use this checklist to rate your calf management program and spot problems that can lead to death in the first two months of life.
Calves need lepto vaccinations earlier
If you give heifers their first vaccination for leptospirosis when they’re yearlings, you may be too late, says Victor Cortese, director of technical services for Pfizer Animal Health.
