Bovine Influenza
We have done most of the communication on this disease by email because it is a continually developing story. The disease is real. Cows are not dying of it. Several studies have shown milk safe to drink if commercially pasteurized. Drinking raw milk now is not advised. The virus fragments found in pasteurized milk are just that, dead fragments as we would expect.

Cows decrease in ruminations, then decrease dry matter intake, and then dramatically decrease in milk production. They stand around for days without eating and drinking acting like they have the flu because they do. After two weeks to 45 days most return to near normal production. There has not been documented spread to humans except one case in a worker on an infected farm. The main vector is wild birds, but once in a herd it spreads mostly through the older pregnant cows.

There is only one herd affected in Ohio and it has not shown up in beef cattle. The USDA has changed its mandate for interstate shipment of lactating cows six times in a few days and some states have decided to follow different guidelines form the USDA guidance document. There is no testing required of market (cull) cows. There is testing needed to move lactating breeding cows Interstate. Market cows can be assembled as they always have but documentation is needed for interstate shipment from the collection point to slaughter. Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin receive cattle on back tags with an owner shipper statement for the cattle dealer. All other states of our local interest require official ID, a Certificate of Veterinary Inspection (CVI), and an import permit. We are working with several local Cattle dealers to get the documentation appropriate for the receiving state.
 

Dr Hardesty attends Dairy Performance Monitoring Workshop
AABP is now offering their preconvention seminars at organization headquarters in Ashland, Ohio. This allows more participation by doctors and in a very focused setting. Dr Hardesty took the Performance Monitoring Workshop, which uses data from records to challenge accepted norms in our industry. One challenge right now is that the pendulum on beef on dairy has swung to the point of not having enough dairy replacements. The price and scarcity of replacements reflects this and the lack of quality of market cows demonstrates that culls were kept too long possibly because there was not a heifer to replace her. It is favorable to right size your heifer herd to reduce replacement costs. Many have calculated heifer needs but have optimistically neglected to account for the fact that only 80% of heifer calves born freshen. Let's redo the math with your repro, age at first calving and cull rates to make sure we are raising the right number of heifers.

Replacement heifer availability drives cull rates. Inspecting market cows at collection points has been enlightening that every farm seems to have a cull cow foot print. They range from cows that are in very good condition weighing 1800 pounds that are going to command 90 cents per pound or more, to those that we have to encourage to get up and make sure they can load on a truck. These 1000 pound Holsteins are lucky to bring home a few hundred dollars. The manager's challenge is to sell 'next month's' cull cows this month and replace her with a productive heifer. We have herds that are able to sell 'next year's' culls to other dairies this year as a substantial profit center. This takes a combination of good repro and low losses at all stages.
 

Health Papers - Dr Nusbaum

This is not a discussion about the new health paper requirements for culling lactating dairy cows. This is a paper going over the requirements that have already been in place when we come out to your place to write a health paper or Certificate of Veterinary Inspection (CVI). I don't know if my colleagues get this feeling, but I always get a little queasiness in the pit of my stomach when someone calls up and asks for a health paper. It is even worse when someone says "Oh yeah, Doc, I forgot, can you write me a health paper for a sale next week for a couple of cows?" I am not sure if anyone knows this but veterinarians put their accreditation on the line every time we write CVI's..

There are several things you can have lined up on your end to ensure things run much smoother on our end. All CVI's require some very basic information. We need your address, phone number and email address. We also need the name, address, and phone number the cattle are traveling to. Along with the official identification of the cattle. Unfortunately, a bangle or herd tag is no longer acceptable. If you do not have official ID in, let us know and we will bring it out with us. Official IDs are identified as either an RFID (starting with the numbers 840 & a USDA icon) or a silver 'brite' tag clamped into the ear.

Make sure you know when you are departing with your cattle & if they are coming back with you. We are only allowed to write health papers within IO days of seeing the cattle and these papers are only good for 30 days once written. This means all testing must be accomplished within that window of time.

It is the responsibility of the producer to know what testing is required. If you can't figure it out usually Jill in our office can, but it saves us time if you have given us the information on what we need to test for before we come out to the farm. You need to keep in mind that certain tests can only be run on certain days of the week depending on the lab running the test. There is also shipping time included in getting these results back to you. Another thing to keep in-mind: TB testing (Tuberculin testing) is done on anything at least six months of age. These animals cannot be retested for 60 days. A TB test has to be administered by a veterinarian and read by the same veterinarian 72 hours later. This puts a little bit of a restriction in our scheduling. Just make sure you realize that we aren't going to come out on a Sunday emergency call to read a TB test result.

Health papers in paper format are strongly discouraged by the government officials. Certificate of Veterinary Inspections are almost all done online. This means we will no longer be able to hop out of the truck walk over to the fence to check out your cow, write out a health paper, hop back in the truck and head out. Now, we are going to have to complete the CVI online and email you a copy. So, make sure we have your we have your email address on file with our Global Vet Link Account.

Just keep in mind that there are many T's to cross & I's to dot on our end to make sure your CVI's get approved & your cattle get to & from wherever you need them to go. So, make sure you do your homework and get us the information we need in advance to help you out. It really is nice when this is all organized.

When something bad happens, you have three choices. You can let it define you, let it destroy you, or let it strengthen you.