Veterinarian Roy Lewis provides a variety of tips on herd health, animal welfare and immunization for western Canadian cow-calf operations, both commercial and purebred.
A best-practices review for your beef cattle herd
Animal Health: Tips on vaccines, equipment and other matters, in either purebred or commercial cow-calf herds
Test for parasites in cattle herd to avoid over-medication
Animal Health: Parasite control is complicated, and herd management needs to be reviewed from time to time
The old days of treating everything in the fall with an ivermectin-type (macrocyclic lactone) product year after year and always expecting excellent results are perhaps going away.
Producers must take foot-and-mouth disease seriously
Animal Health: Several other diseases can look similar to FMD
The recent foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Germany tells us that we all collectively need to be on the lookout for it.
Castration via banding makes gains in popularity, safety
Animal Health: Pain relief in the bands can make the experience less irritating for young calves
The first castration banders were likely developed to replace knife or scalpel castration. They were easy to use and eliminated the complications of infections and blood loss. Castration with a knife or scalpel is harder to master and animal welfare issues must be considered. Banders have been around for a while; I recently saw an […] Read more
Prevention and responsibility can be shared
Animal Health: Crop growers and cattle producers can benefit by working together
In writing for the past several years for Grainews it was nice trying to create articles that had application to the cattle, grain and mixed farmers out there. Better long-term solutions are created by looking from both sides of the fence at a problem. These create win-win situations, where both sides of a deal, trade […] Read more
Larger cattle need more water
Animal Health: Long-term trends in the beef sector continue to evolve
The only constant is change and I have seen a lot of changes in beef production; this article will outline some of them. With lots of evidence of warmer summers, water access is paramount in most of our eyes. There’s more capacity for access by all classes of cattle, including from newly designed water troughs […] Read more
Increasing AI use has many advantages
Animal Health: There are improved technologies for breeding and synchronization, for which AI makes more sense
Over the last decade or so, artificial insemination (AI), not to be confused with the other AI (artificial intelligence), has seen an upsurge in the commercial cattle population. This has been happening for a lot longer in the purebred cattle industry and a lot of the reasons are the same. If one is considering AI […] Read more
Finding ideal scrotal size important in sire purchasing
Animal Health: Be careful not to buy a bull with too large of a scrotal size
If there’s something the market desires, there’s no doubt that purebred beef breeders can make it happen. A few years ago we did notice breed averages for scrotal size coming up a bit, so the minimum accepted scrotal sizes were adjusted up just a bit (one centimetre) in some cases. I think that is about […] Read more
There are now many veterinary clinic models
Animal Health: Veterinarians have specialized and also offer more telemedicine
In rural Western Canada, the veterinary clinic was traditionally a mixed-animal practice, with everyone being a jack of all trades and emergency work in all species. But cattle were the bread and butter. We have all heard of the shortage of veterinarians for both small and large animals, but there has also been a big […] Read more
How to manage two similar livestock pharmaceuticals
Animal Health: Subtle differences can give one medication an advantage over another
This article provides some clarity for when new products or combinations of products come onto the market. These days all antimicrobials, NSAIDs and a few other products are prescription products and most come under the VCPR (veterinary-client-patient relationship). The two products in this case have already been on the market for years, but now, with no […] Read more
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