Some pathogens also appear to
proliferate in cold weather, such as coronavirus. “It’ll be kind of like the common cold,” says Spire. “For about 10 days while there’s an in- fection, it’ll suppress the immune system and allow something else to happen.” He says it’s present in about 20 percent of cases where producers are experiencing other health problems in cattle. There’s no vaccine for it, so management is key. An additional environment-re-
lated factor is nutrition. “Droughty cattle won’t have the protein lev- els or the energy levels in them” when they arrive at the feedyard, Spire says. “A lot of times, they’re in a marginal state of metabolism, where they’re just holding on. We see trace minerals decrease.” It takes time for minerals to ac- cumulate in the bodies of the cattle.
A shot only provides temporary re- spite. It also takes 9 to 10 days for the rumen bacteria to adapt to new rations, and if the ration is not well balanced, there could be further adjustment problems. Spire says, “If I do things that are
going to disrupt the intake pattern of those animals — that’s rehan- dling those cattle, dumping new cattle in, irregularities on the time I feed cattle — all those things can end up taking longer to get those cattle adapted. When they’re adapt- ing they tend to be on a negative energy balance. When that happens, we don’t have the immune system functioning at its fullest, and the calf is just not going to respond.” And there will also be a side ef-
fect produced by parasite control. Spire says following deworming, it takes the immune system of a stocker calf 10 days to 2 weeks to
adjust to the reduced parasite load. Think of it as a set of scales, he says. “If it’s off balance, it’s got to reset itself to where it’s able to respond to viruses and vaccines better.” Says Spire, “Many factors con-
tribute to poor health responses in newly weaned or received calves. Many are simple management er- rors that can be avoided. If man- agement errors such as introducing persistently infected BVD calves, mixing cattle shortly after arrival, feeding irregularities and/or inap- propriate vaccine use are added as additional stressors, the chances increase that populations of bacte- ria, viruses and mycoplasma that come in through and often reside in the noses of cattle can start to proliferate, resulting in a health wreck. Think about management from the calf’s perspective. How would you like to be managed?”
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