I have written about a few over the years, and each have their pros and cons.

In the old days, many counties in Alberta would rent a chute on transport wheels.

Luckily, the old scissor-type head gates are a thing of the past because many animals would attempt to jump through and get hung up at the hips.

Ensure safety

It’s important for the safety of producers and everyone else dealing with their stock that handling equipment is functional and safe.

The brand-name chutes still need to be checked to make sure nothing is broken.

The older chutes with wooden boards and wooden floor struts can be replaced with treated lumber.

The quality is generally there, and as a start-up chute, it is still considered a good choice.

There are also calf cradles or calf chutes, and if dealing with smaller calves at spring turnout, these work fine.

Restraint is key in today’s cattle production with its preventive vaccines, preg checking, calf implanting and the administration of pour-on products or those given orally.

Having a functioning, well-maintained chute is the way to get you there.

Neighbours know best

It’s best to talk to your neighbours about why they like their chute.

When in doubt, the best person to ask is your herd veterinarian because they have used all kinds of chutes in all kinds of circumstances.

Many producers advance from a good manual chute to a hydraulic one, and I have even written an article on the advantages of hydraulic chutes.

They come with a price tag, but the savings on labour are huge, and a small person can run one all day and not get fatigued.

I have had situations where a calf got turned around in a lead-up alley system while castrating and vaccinating. The beauty is the calf can be backed into the chute and essentially done backward and then backed out of the chute. These are all labour savings.

The newer chutes can have neck restraints that make implanting much easier. Implanting does take some skill and repetition, but the proper head restraint is key.

Instructions not included

When I jokingly ask someone who has just bought a chute if they had read the operator’s manual, the hesitant response is always no. That’s because they don’t come with one, so producers need to jump in and work with them.

Experiment with the neck adjustment and adjusting the width of the chute. Make sure there is a mechanism for traction on the floor.

The biggest improvements over the years have been metal floors with built-in traction devices and better access panels for giving shots, especially with access to the neck area.

Ideally, there will be a self-catch head gate or one that can be operated from the side.

I recently used an Arrowquip chute manufactured in Manitoba. It allows the user to operate from the side so that cattle walk easily along. It is also very well leveraged so younger folk can easily use it. A large fibreglass bar can be placed behind the livestock.

Good equipment reduces stress

Animal welfare has improved dramatically in modern livestock production because of good equipment. The stress on the cattle and operators has greatly reduced, and we simply do a better job.

The importance of handling equipment will increase as individual care becomes more common and more products are given orally or poured on.

Chutes have had to get bigger, especially in the cow-calf and feedlot sector, because finished cattle are bigger and heavily pregnant cows require width when moving through the chutes.

Old chutes are often placed in pastures and work well with small catch pens.

We now have the ability to dart with certain products in situations where the medication will help and where animals are in too big an area to round up or the family doesn’t have a very experienced roper.

Protocols for the use of remote drug delivery devices should be worked out with a veterinarian.

I also don’t know many decent-sized producers who don’t have a maternity pen.

Make it easy on yourself when examining a cow at calving or helping them suck.

They need to be set up somewhere that has easy access, a good light source and is out of the elements. They are worth their weight in gold, and can often be found at farm dispersals, ranch sales or consignment auctions in rural towns.

I have my favourites, but any maternity pen is better than no maternity pen.

Handling equipment is a worthwhile, long-term investment.

It increases efficiency and safety for both the veterinarian and the producer.

As well, the cattle are much safer and less likely to injure themselves, even the frantic ones.

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The severe diarrhea, abdominal pain, fever, headaches and dehydration can cause serious consequences in people, especially in the elderly and young children.

There are, however, numerous strains of salmonella bacteria — some of which are adapted to cattle and tend to reside in the cattle population. These strains can cause significant disease in dairy and beef herds — and in people who are exposed to them, whether by working with sick cattle or by consuming raw milk from infected dairy cows.

Salmonella outbreaks are more common in dairy herds, where animals are more closely confined, but occasionally outbreaks also occur in beef operations.

Salmonella is spread by fecal-oral transmission, and the source of the infection is usually feces from infected cows.

It may be very difficult to identify which cows are the source of the infection and are shedding bacteria, because some infected carrier cows may show little or no symptoms and still shed as many organisms in their feces as cows that are clinically ill.

Other sources of infection may include rodents, birds, flies, cats, dogs and even people on occasion. Outbreaks are more common in the calving season.

Over the last number of years, a particular strain called Salmonella dublin has been identified as a cause of infections in cattle in some parts of the world, including Europe and now North America. Salmonella dublin has become a common cause of disease outbreaks on dairy farms in many parts of Canada, and I have also spoken to many veterinarians who have also had outbreaks in cow-calf operations.

Salmonella dublin is adapted to live in cattle, which remain the most important reservoir of this strain of the bacteria. It is also a strain of salmonella that’s very difficult to treat because it tends to be multi-drug resistant and will not respond to antibiotic therapy.

Cattle, people and companion animal species can be infected by this strain of the bacteria and it can lead to serious illness.

Salmonellosis is usually a disorder of the gastrointestinal tract, and it typically causes a fever and severe diarrhea that is often bloody. If untreated, the diarrhea can lead to dehydration and death of the animal.

However, Salmonella dublin is unique in cattle in that it also can present in young calves as a respiratory illness and can cause more systemic infections in mature animals, which might result in abortions in pregnant cows.

Often the initial signs of disease in a herd include seeing young calves with pneumonia-like symptoms and calf mortality.

Control of salmonella outbreaks is difficult in cattle operations, but especially so in the case of Salmonella dublin infections.

There are three reasons for this:

• Multi-drug resistance: Antibiotics are of little value in treating clinical cases because this strain is so resistant to many commonly used antibiotics. It’s even thought that antibiotic therapy may extend the duration of the animal shedding the organism.

• Ability to survive in the environment: All salmonella strains can survive in the environment for extended periods of time, and Salmonella dublin has been shown to survive in dry feces for more than a year and in water, soil or moist areas out of direct sunlight for up to four or five years. An important aspect to controlling salmonella outbreaks is to limit the environmental exposure and to avoid contaminating water sources, feed and other equipment that may be used with cattle, such as halters, ropes, brooms, buckets, shovels, esophageal calf feeders and nipple bottles.

• The carrier animal: Salmonella dublin is much more efficient at creating asymptomatic carriers than many other strains of salmonella. When these animals undergo a period of stress, such as calving, they may start shedding the organism again in subsequent years and cause other infections to occur. Identifying these carrier organisms is difficult, but blood tests are available at some diagnostic laboratories that may help to identify carrier animals so that they can be culled.

In the face of a Salmonella dublin outbreak, exceptional calving management procedures must be instituted. Separating clinically infected animals from cows that are calving is essential, as well as maintaining high levels of biosecurity and environmental hygiene throughout the farm. Producers will need to work closely with their veterinarian to limit the spread of this highly infectious disease.

The ideal solution is to not introduce Salmonella dublin onto a farm or ranch in the first place. Most outbreaks are caused by introducing cattle onto an operation that have been previously infected and are carriers of the bacteria.

Having a strong biosecurity program in place and limiting the introductions of animals onto a farm is the best method of preventing this disease from causing problems in a cattle herd.

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