Banamine Transdermal Approved for Dairy We have been using Banamine Transdermal for a few years. It has primarily been used for respiratory and injuries in calves, heifers, and beef cattle. It has recently been approved for dairy cows with a 48 hour milk and 8 day slaughter withhold. No more putting Flunixin in the vein, just pour it down their back. We will get more details this week.

Dr. Lefeld speaks at AABP Recent Grad conference. The AABP recent grad conference was created several years ago and has been very well received by those that have graduated within the past 7 years. Dr. Lefeld has quickly advanced from attendee to invited speaker. He spoke on the in clinic milk culture lab that he initiated and oversees. This has been a tremendous addition to our practice with the ability to culture clinical cows, check bulk tanks, and do quantifications of contamination in colostrum and milk for calves. Our lab has also been support to those that are doing on farm culture. Dr. Lefeld also does milking system evaluations from the cow perspective. If your SCC is over 250,000 or your clinical rate is higher than 1% being held out at any time, ask for some assistance.

Dr. Card attends Indiana VMA where he attended numerous lectures on antimicrobial utilization, susceptibility, resistance and stewardship.

Dr. Card attends OVMA and gathered a variety of information from lectures including: calvings, meat inspection, ultrasound, embryo transfer, hyperketonemia, hypocalcemia, proper dry-off.

Additionally he attended some lectures on small ruminant production and anesthesia.

Dr. Nusbaum and Dr. Stayduhar virtual OVMA attendees Virtual attendees have 6 months to view recorded versions of talks at the OVMA. They plan to spend some of their days off as continuing education.

Integrated Pest Management for Flies There are two flies of consequence in housed cattle. The stable fly lays eggs in manure and decaying matter. It rests in tall grass. It takes blood meals causing bunching and heat stress. Only 4 stable flies per animal can decrease milk production by 3%. Control strategy is to start Clarifly in the feed 30 days before the temperature is consistently 65 degrees until 30 days after killing frost. That is now! We then clean up decaying matter to drive the stable flies to the manure, which is treated. Clarifly is a growth regulator and larvicide that prevents 96% of flies from emerging. There is no documented resistance so control improves year after year. If you don't start feeding soon enough and stable flies get ahead of the Clarifly it will take 3 to 4 weeks to get ahead of an infestation. During this time diligence with adult sprays will be needed. House flies feed and lay eggs in the same decaying matter.

House flies stay with a herd. They can carry Bovine Respiratory Disease, Mastitis, Scours, Typhoid, Anthrax, Anaplaz, and Vibrio. They may be involved in moving Pinkeye organisms in housed cattle. They feed and breed low but rest high. Sticky traps can be useful to control adults. So what needs attention to be cleaned up? Any decaying matter can be a breeding ground. Central Life Sciences offers a free service to inspect your farm and make a priority list of recommendations. Let us know you want this service and we will pass the message along.

Drs. Hardesty and Stayduhar attend Mercer Landmark meeting This meeting had two speakers that many of you may have seen the next day. Dr. Don Sockett (U of Wis) does much of our pathology work. He talked about Salmonella in calf environments and flies captured on calf operations. The percent of environments contaminated with an infective dose of salmonella on dairy beef operations was higher than home raised calves, but both were higher than we would like. A contaminated environment perpetuates itself as clean bedding becomes contaminated enough to cause disease in just 3 days. Biofilms are part of this situation. Cleaning can help with salmonella, but can we clean well enough? Cleaning products need to be used properly and need to be monitored for efficacy. I would suggest that vaccination has been an important part of salmonella control, especially vaccines with SRP technology which helps decrease shedding into our environment.

The second speaker was Dr. Terri Olivet (U of Wis) who is probably the most well known resource and proponent of calf lung ultrasound. Both of us resolved to take the time to ultrasound calf lungs on a regular basis to build on farm data bases of lung scores. Dr. Olivet emphasized that lungs are the window to calf health management. It is important to remember that respiratory disease is a symptom of calf management failure, and if we are struggling with respiratory disease it is important to also go back to the basics of colostrum, bedding, heat/cold stress, air quality, etc.

A core component to calf lung ultrasound is to wean clean. Commonly we will assume that the stressors of weaning are what bring on respiratory disease, when really we need to change our thinking to creating a stronger, healthier calf that can even thrive during weaning. We know that every calf that is clinical for respiratory disease started to be subclinical 1-2 weeks before we were able to diagnose them. Therefore, if we are breaking with clinical disease at weaning our window of opportunity was actually a few weeks prior to weaning. Research has also shown that for every clinical calf there is 2-4 subclinical calves.

In order to make sure we are weaning clean all we have to do is ultrasound calf lungs at weaning. If all looks good and calves are doing well this can be a practice that is implemented several times a year to try and get ahead of any outbreaks that may be coming. However, many farms have found that their calves are not as clean as they appeared to be clinically. Then the next step would be to start scanning calves at 7d of age, and repeat at 7d intervals to identify the high risk age group. This age group will vary by farm and once it is identified it can make it easier for caretakers to try and identify sick calves sooner. An example is a farm may discover that even if a calf is drinking, bright, no eye or nasal discharge, BUT has a slight expiratory effort, and that calf is in the high risk age group it needs to be treated even if this is the only clinical sign it has. Another practice that can be implemented is routine scanning of calves in the high risk age group at herd health visits. This can help guide treatments and cut down on the amount of subclinical calves that become clinical.

Two other places to implement ultrasound are scanning calves at the start of treatment to make sure their disease is not too progressed (and we are catching them early enough) and then again at 7-10 days after treatment to make sure they are fully recovered. All of these above strategies can really improve your calves and the future of your herd. We are always willing to help in any way  we can! - Dr Emily Stayduhar

The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength. Marcus Aurelius