Watch your weanling health this autumn

Be prepared

Even with the best preparation in the world, farmers can have sick weanlings in the autumn time. Weanlings are under the most stress due to weaning and housing. If you add in transport and a potential trip to the mart, they are the animals we see the most problems with at this time of year.

By far our biggest use of antibiotics is treating pneumonia cases in cattle farming. We must remember that pneumonia costs money and is a significant welfare challenge.

There are direct costs, such as:

Each case of pneumonia can cost €100 per animal due to lost performance. This comes from lung damage reducing performance and causing extra days to finish. In a batch of 20 weanlings that got pneumonia, the hidden costs could be €2,000 from lost thrive and later finishing.

If we can prevent or manage pneumonia we can make huge savings. This is why vaccinations should not be considered an unnecessary expense, but a valuable insurance policy.

Treat well and treat early

Even the best managed farms will need to treat weanlings occasionally. The main thing to ensure, using good stockmanship, is that sick animals are spotted quickly. Early detection of disease will greatly influence the treatment outcomes.

Symptoms to watch for

With viral pneumonias, some farmers will use an anti-inflammatory first before monitoring. When using antibiotics, farmers must work with their vet to provide the correct treatments and ensure the right antibiotic is given by the right route with the right dose and duration.

A very simple exercise is to mark any animals that require a second course or different treatment.

With groups of sick animals, a veterinary investigation is required and makes huge sense

With mycoplasma pneumonia, we have seen very poor responses to lots of different antibiotics. Again, this is where farmers need to be involving their vet when it comes to treatment choices.

With groups of sick animals, a veterinary investigation is required and makes huge sense.

It’s valuable to get a diagnosis or cause for pneumonia.

1. Viruses:

2. Bacteria:

3. Parasites.

4. Lungworm.

Knowing what the problem is will help our treatments, our control and our vaccination strategy. If any weanlings die they must be sent for post mortem to look for the cause.

To get a diagnosis, your vet may take a nasal swab, or in some cases do a lung flush to rule out or look for lungworm. Blood tests can also be useful, but may require two samples separated or paired. A good way to identify the virus is a young stock blood screen.

The most common cause of pneumonia is bacteria, but farmers must remember this bacteria can be in the nose and airways of healthy cattle in small numbers. When cattle get stressed or get viruses, the weakened immune system allows this bacteria to increase in numbers and damage the lungs.This is why viral and bacterial infections together are so serious and why we treat animals with pneumonia with antibiotics.

Picking a vaccine

There are four companies making pneumonia vaccines. There are also different types of vaccines themselves (live and dead) along with different routes and timings. This creates confusion amongst farmers, which is why I urge farmers to work with their vets to make the best choice.

Weanlings respond well to viral and bacterial vaccine combinations at a minimum. This involves a dead vaccine containing the virus and bacterial antigens given in two shots three to four weeks apart, before the risk period (now).

Some farmers choose to use viral intranasal vaccines which work a little quicker and give three months cover, but these don’t have bacterial cover.

We vaccinate less than 25% of our young animals against pneumonia in Ireland. We can do better to improve cattle health on farms.

Farmers will say vaccines are an extra cost, but in fact, the real cost is disease. Making a vaccine plan to control pneumonia can make a huge difference.

Over the last six to eight weeks there has been a huge increase in reports of weanlings coughing at grass. Most of these cases have turned out to be lungworm, with some also picking up secondary infections (with bacteria and viruses). This led to farmers treating weanlings before housing, with many wondering if they should be dosed again now.

This will depend on the product used, for example moxidectin has over a month of persistency.

If farmers haven’t dosed weanlings, then using faecal egg counts and clinical signs at this time of year is good practice.

Housing coughing animals is a real danger

Farmers could take a spoonful of fresh faeces from six to eight weanlings and pool them together early in the week to be sent to the lab for analysis. If weanlings are coughing, it may be lungworm, so the advice is to treat quickly and not wait.

Housing coughing animals is a real danger, because the new environment and parasites put huge pressure on the immune system.

Fluke risk in the midlands and east is very low, but this may vary from farm to farm.

The recent wet weather means every farm needs to assess their fluke risk. Any weanling-scouring farmers must consider worms and possibly rumen fluke as a cause.

When picking your dose, look at the weather, clinical signs and faecal egg counts so you can make better treatment decisions for your animals.

The recent disturbed weather and the stress of weaning presents a real risk of grass tetany in suckler cows.

Grass tetany occurs when low magnesium causes cows to go down rapidly and start tremoring. Cows suffering from grass tetany can die quite quickly.

Cows need to take magnesium daily as it is vital to their nerve function.

Wet weather will stop grazing cows at weaning and also reduce their intakes, as wet grass tends to flow faster through cows.

Another big risk occurs when fertiliser has been recently applied to get the last of the growth for the autumn.

Every farmer should have a bottle of magnesium and calcium on hand

Both potassium and nitrogen can potentially lock up magnesium and increase the risk of grass tetany.

Every farmer should have a bottle of magnesium and calcium on hand in the autumn time, both should be given under the skin while waiting for your vet to arrive.

Magnesium can be given in meal, through water or by licks at high risk times of the year.

Cows with grass tetany can be totally unpredictable when standing, so handle with care.