of year and the overall market, there can be some big discounts. “What does it do to your market when 1 or 2 big


purchasers of feeder cattle will not bid on your cattle because of days weaned or overall lack of health? Reputation sells feeder cattle. Detailed health history, pregnancy status, nutrition history, genetics, sort and weigh-up are crucial when establishing a reputation.”


Scrutinize green calves Johnson says that handling high-risk fresh calves


may be okay if you have done your homework and are an experienced stocker producer. “If I can get these cattle to eat, drink, avoid viruses, limit exposure to disease and keep stress down — I have a chance,” Johnson explains, noting that “cattle health” is the No. 1 issue in buying, then grazing or backgrounding calves. “For fresh calves, it depends on the source of these


calves and how much stress they have been subjected to, and what diseases and parasites they have been exposed to,” he says. “Any type of stress is bad, no mat- ter the species. A producer really needs to understand


If I am purchasing sale barn


calves, I want to get possession of those calves ASAP.


108 The Cattleman September 2016


the process and logistics of buying this type of calf.” Morbidity increases dramatically for sale-barn calves.


And it’s getting worse. “In the 1970s we fi gured a 2 percent death loss,” Johnson says. “Now, we pencil in a 4 to 8 percent death loss on breakevens, depending on the class of cattle and where they are from. You need to have a lot of expertise in reading the health of calves to purchase green calves. The more about the process you know and control, the better off you are.” McCollum estimates that with 2016 costs, every 1


percent increase in morbidity or incidence of disease in a set of calves reduces profi t by $1.43 for every calf in the group. “Breaking it down further, 62 percent of the $1.43 is attributed to mortality of the calves that became sick,” he says. “Another 21 percent is attributed to reduced performance of sick calves. About 17 per- cent is attributed to costs of treating the sick calves.” Viral infections are a major concern for all calves,


especially those that have not been vaccinated and pre- conditioned. “Infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR) is a herpes virus that’s everywhere,” Johnson says. “Calves can be exposed to it from other cattle, or the virus can lay dormant and break back out from car- rier cattle that are stressed. IBR has a short incubation period and it can go through cattle extremely fast. It can be a precursor to bacterial pneumonia.” Bovine viral diarrhea (BVD) is a huge problem and


hits beef producers and feeders with hundreds of mil- lions of dollars in losses every year. “BVD is hard on


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