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Tag Archives Roy Lewis

Bands impregnated with the painkiller lidocaine can provide pain relief for young calves.
Cattleman’s Corner, Columns, Cow-Calf

Castration via banding makes gains in popularity, safety

Animal Health: Pain relief in the bands can make the experience less irritating for young calves

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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
cow and calf
Beef Cattle, Cattleman’s Corner, Columns

How to manage two similar livestock pharmaceuticals

Animal Health: Subtle differences can give one medication an advantage over another

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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
Pretreated calves usually need a booster for mycoplasma once they arrive at a feedlot.
Beef Cattle, Cattleman’s Corner, Columns

Lower stress, lower mycoplasma

Animal Health: The secondary respiratory and joint disease can be limited with prevention

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Feedlot owners and backgrounders across this country always have one question for me: “Is there anything new out there to combat mycoplasma?” While there are a couple of vaccines licensed for cattle, they do require multiple shots. Vaccines help, but focusing on decreasing stress and other diseases can limit mycoplasma infection. Mycoplasma comes in many […] Read more
The RFID tag should be put ideally a quarter of the way out from the head and in the middle.
Cattleman’s Corner

More cattle tags being retained

Animal Health: Tag makers continue to improve reliability of tags against harsh conditions

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The national livestock identification system has been around for a good while now, close to 25 years. Through the system’s growing pains, lots of lessons have been learned and the system is being fine-tuned. Producers are deriving more and more benefit from using farm management systems linked to readers linked to scales, all based on […] Read more
AFAC spearheaded the deployment of emergency trailers across the province for use in emergencies such as barn fires or livestock transport rollovers.
Cattleman’s Corner, Columns, Livestock

Who will carry on AFAC’s work in Alberta?

The organization provided valuable services, including emergency livestock trailers

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It is with sadness I heard about Alberta Farm Animal Care (AFAC) closing its doors in Alberta after 30 years, which I would say is after 30 years of extreme good. The great thing was that it was animal welfare-based through and through and had all the production animal groups on its board. They all […] Read more
The shortage of veterinarians often becomes most apparent during calving season. |
Cattleman’s Corner, Livestock

How to manage in a veterinarian shortage

Hauling an animal to a clinic is one solution, as are larger clinics with satellite sites

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There’s huge talk about the shortage of veterinarians — especially large-animal, but also small-animal and emergency animal care. There was a recent announcement that the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (UCVM) will raise the number of training seats to 100 from the current 50, when an expansion is completed next year. I would […] Read more
cow with newborn calf
Cattleman’s Corner, Cow-Calf, Livestock

Use an NSAID for the right reasons

Mitigating pain makes sense in many areas of cattle production

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Pain medication may be accompanied by treatment with antibiotics, but sometimes this is unnecessary. If your veterinarian prescribes non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for pain, he or she may choose one based on label claim, experience in the field, price per treatment, duration of activity, ease of administration, advice of associates or slaughter withdrawal. There are […] Read more
Vet product licensing process needs improvement
Cattleman’s Corner, Columns

Vet product licensing process needs improvement

Canada can miss out on products that take too long or cost too much to register

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Having been both a licensed veterinary practitioner and worked in the pharmaceutical industry for several years, I have seen a few things about how the product-licensing process affects the production animal industry in Canada. While every situation is unique, the process can indirectly affect cost of production in some cases, while in others access is […] Read more
During a necropsy on a calf, some of the material in its gut included this fairly large piece of tan-coloured plastic.
Cattleman’s Corner, Livestock

Be alert to bovines consuming ‘software’

Animal Health with Roy Lewis: Twine, plastic, rope — there is a good chance it could end up in an animal’s gut

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I just completed an autopsy on an older well-doing calf that got suddenly sick dehydrated and toxic-looking. My daughter, also a veterinarian, did an autopsy on a mature cow that was losing weight and going downhill, becoming emaciated and weak. Even though both these clinical signs seem different, as well as the age difference between […] Read more
There are a number of handling equipment manufacturers offering new features and improved designs.
Cattleman’s Corner, Livestock

Great information on improved cattle handling

Animal Health with Roy Lewis: Plenty of resources to help reduce stress on people and livestock

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We’ve all come a long way in our cattle-handling ability with improved skills, improved methods, and equipment and facilities that have become more refined. Lots of resources have been put into better understanding of proper handling practices. One I suggest checking out is Merck’s Creating Connections website. It can help producers raise healthier cattle and […] Read more

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