Working with a Veterinarian

By Heather Smith Thomas

I?t pays to have a good working relationship with a veterinarian, to assist in herd health management strategy and preventative medicine, rather than just relying on a veterinarian for emergencies.

Dr. David Van Metre, Associate Professor, Colorado State University, says many diseases are more successfully prevented than treated. "If a health problem develops in a herd, something has already gone wrong. Most veterinarians can serve as an important resource to help the stockman figure out why certain diseases occur--and how management and environment can be changed to help prevent the disease," he says.

"Veterinarians can assist in herd health programs like vaccination, deworming strategies, and help owners design treatment protocols to ensure that appropriate medications are used for specific problems," says Van Metre. Using several antibiotics at the same time may be counterproductive, depending on which drug classes are combined, or add to treatment costs. The veterinarian and producer could talk about cost-effective and rational strategy for treating common things like retained placenta, pneumonia, mastitis, foot rot and discuss diagnosis.

"Making sensible and cost-effective treatment protocols not only helps minimize treatment costs and maximize treatment success, but also can be important in quality assurance and residue avoidance," explains Van Metre.

Many questions can be answered by the veterinarian. "Only about one in seven U.S. cow-calf operations have cattle as their primary source of income," he says. The majority of cattle in the U.S. are produced by people with 50 cows or less.
"Those individuals have other jobs; it's hard to find time to wade through all the data regarding efficacy of certain vaccines, proper utilization of vaccine or deworming drugs, appropriate antibiotics for different respiratory conditions. Advertising in lay journals won't always show data that would enable you to compare claims to efficacy. Veterinarians can help the rancher determine whether a particular product has been proven to be useful in scenarios the rancher will face," he explains.

The veterinarian's responsibility is to stay on top of new product developments, to be able to answer important questions a producer might ask, to make the right decisions about which product to use. What works on a ranch in southern Alberta may not work in southern Texas. If cattle are scattered in large pastures in a northern climate, parasite control needs are much different, for instance, than for intensively pastured cattle in Alabama.

A producer might manage his/her cattle a certain way year after year with no problems until something changes. Maybe it's weather, or more heifers in the herd, or a higher percentage of dystocia, or more cattle congregating in late winter around big bale feeders, and suddenly there's an outbreak of calf scours.
"As individuals we become accustomed to our own daily routines. When our ranching habits work well for us it becomes difficult for us to critique what might have gone wrong," he says. Another set of eyes can be helpful -- maybe detecting potential factors that are combining to create disease.

"When veterinarians only get to see sick animals in the clinic, all we see is what's gone wrong. We can tell which pathogens are involved, but we can't tell the producer why it happened until we get out on the place. We need to be more familiar with the management, to help the rancher determine why it happened. This is key to helping prevent future problems," he explains.

Necropsy can be helpful in many instances. "There is much to learn from a necropsy, such as what the animal died from, or efficacy of treatments that were applied." If it died suddenly, rather than from chronic disease, the animal's tissues might be useful for nutrient analysis (such as copper levels).

A necropsy can help the stockman understand why antibiotic treatment for a chronic pneumonia is less likely to succeed than if administered the first day of illness. "There will be scarring and abscess formation in a chronic pneumonia. Some of these processes are hard to understand until you see this with your own eyes, and realize this animal was never going to get better because 80 percent of the lung tissue is destroyed," explains Van Metre.

When the veterinarian is there for pregnancy checking, this is a good time to check eyes or teeth on certain animals, or body condition score. Most ranchers work with veterinarians on task-based things such as pregnancy diagnosis, but there is much to be gained in also working together on disease prevention strategies. These are far more likely to succeed over the long run, than the call to come treat an animal that has already developed that disease. (C)