Farm Animal Veterinary Update - Autumn

Veterinary Update - Late Autumn into June 

In April and May we start gearing up for the busy season to come. The autumn herds are starting to join and the winter spring herds are mostly drying off. We do have quite a few herds that calve in May and June. Compared to last year we are doing less calvings in April and May, but a lot more lame cows. It has been wetter than last year and we tend to see increases in lameness as the tracks get wetter, cows’ feet get softer and the autumn cows start to cycle. 

For the autumn calvers we are currently doing the last lots of calf dehorning. For those farmers that haven’t used us for calf dehorning, we give them all a sedative to sit them down, place local anaesthetic blocks, dehorn them, give them an injection of a pain killer and disinfect the wound. Calves can’t remember what happened to them, there’s no screaming calves and the calves aren’t in as much pain afterwards. Animal welfare is the main driving force behind dehorning calves this way, but one of the other benefits that farmers see is that it is much easier on them. A vet and vet assistant team do all of the dehorning work, including dealing with extra teats and checking hernias. The farmer can go and do another job, or take the opportunity while the calves are down to vaccinate, ear tag or genomic test. If you are thinking of booking in any calves, we aim to do them at around one month old. 

We are also in the midst of our main heifer Teatseal season. We have a purpose built trailer that generally holds 5 to 6 heifers at a time. The trailer is like a tight herringbone and the heifers can’t move much and find it difficult to kick. In some NZ studies, putting Teatseal into heifers reduced the incidence of Strep. uberis infection of the udder by over 80%. The ideal time to Teatseal heifers is 4 to 6 weeks before calving. We are one of the only clinics that has a Teatseal trailer in Gippsland and so we travel out of our normal area to do herds across West Gippsland as well. 

Our vet assistant team is also busy drying off cows. This service has continued to grow in popularity and so please speak to our receptionists if you are interested. All of our calf dehorning, heifer Teatsealing and drying off services are cheaper if you sign up to a farm package. For those of you that aren’t already on one, you pay a monthly fee to get 50% off call out fees and a discount on products. 

For beef producers we are continuing to see outbreaks of sudden death or acutely unwell steers associated with severe pneumonias. Quite a few of these outbreaks have been after a recent transport event. It is common for pneumonias to develop 1 to 3 weeks after the stress of yarding and transport. It highlights the importance of using the respiratory vaccines against IBR, Mannheimia and Salmonella on your young stock and asking agents or sellers whether cattle have been vaccinated prior to purchasing them. 

In the last month we saw an unusual case which we suspect to be marshmallow weed toxicity. Yearling calves were unsteady on their legs, falling over and had exaggerated steps as they walked. They didn’t have tremors like staggers or blindness like polio or lead toxicity. We ruled out other causes like white muscle disease (selenium deficiency induced muscle degeneration) and a few causes through blood tests. By exclusion we think that the marshmallow (Malva parviflora) was the cause. If cattle eat enough marshmallow, a toxin within the plant can cause damage to the heart and skeletal muscle. The paddock that the calves were on was full of the weed. They were removed from this paddock to one with no marshmallow and they have slowly improved over a few weeks.