With cattle returns high in recent years, beef producers should consider spending on things that improve herd health, productivity and animal welfare and make their own lives easier, veterinarian Roy Lewis writes in a column for the Manitoba Co-operator. The views are the writer's own.
Lewis starts with calving: high-resolution cameras that rotate 360 degrees and zoom save steps and allow timely intervention, and on pasture a good drone keeps calving cows in view and can also check fences, waterers and mineral feeders. Portable troughs with high-capacity solar pumps cost more, he says, but faster water access prevents line-ups and has been shown to improve gains and health even in feedlots, and well water should be tested for total dissolved solids.
Handling systems are used more often than ever on cow-calf and purebred farms, and the weakest part, whether alleyway, crowding tub, palpation cage or squeeze chute, will need fixing or replacing; he argues now may be the time for a hydraulic chute. A good cooler keeps vaccines at the right temperature, and a herd health programme with a veterinarian keeps vaccines and treatment procedures up to date.
For feeders, roller-compacted concrete in feedlots, bull pens or barnyards pays back in less cleaning, and modern electric and virtual fencing lets cattle clean up harvested grain fields while spreading manure. Among animal-welfare products, he cites appeasing products that visibly calm cattle and reduce shrink after weaning or transport, lidocaine-impregnated castration bands, NSAIDs and remote drug-delivery darts, used only as a veterinarian prescribes, without over-treating, and with spent darts collected.
Lewis urges experienced producers to share vaccination and management practices with new and smaller farmers, welcomes the Canadian Food Inspection Agency backing off enhanced traceability rules and provincial meat plants shipping across provincial borders, and, given trade uncertainty and tariffs, advises keeping larger stocks of vaccines, insecticides, dewormers and fencing supplies.
Photo: Cgoodwin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: Manitoba Co-operator
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