I am a member of a bovine veterinarian listserv, and most of the questions are posed by more recent veterinary graduates. The question was what to do about a 900# bull that had been banded by the owner three weeks earlier. The bull was now down and unable to rise. The young doctor knew he had tetanus and sought advice on treatment. Every response except one said to do the humane thing and euthanize the bull. I replied that I had also attempted to treat several of these but had had zero success. My partner in practice called this “throwing good money after bad.” Once an animal with tetanus is down and unable to rise, the battle is over.

I despise the big banders and the false advertising that encourages beef producers to use natural testosterone to make a bull calf heavier than a steer at the time of weaning. They are inhumane, and the testosterone effect is false. A bull does not produce sufficient testosterone until he is about 8-10 months of age.

A study at Kansas State showed that bulls that were left intact weighed only 5# more at weaning than their steer mates that were castrated at birth or at 2-3 months of age. Want to know how to capture those 5# and 20 more? Use a low-dose growth implant at 2-3 months of age on all the steers. The value of those 25# is about $39 in today’s market (price slide included), and those 25# extra pounds are nearly all muscle.

A low-dose implant costs less than $2.50 and returns $39 in 100 days. That is an ROI of 1,460 percent. Ask your banker if they can match that. Talk to your herd health veterinarian to be sure you use the correct product. There are about 30 different implants, and using the correct one is vitally important.

Should you also implant heifers? My recommendations are: (1) I know the heifer is not going to be a replacement – implant her; (2) Not sure if she will be a replacement or not – implant; (3) know for sure she is going to be a replacement – no implant. Studies show a 0-4 percent decrease in fertility of heifers that receive a suckling implant. That means if you normally keep 25 heifers back to breed to get 20 bred, you need to keep 26 to get 20 bred.

If you are worried about the safety of implants, there have been hundreds of studies that confirm their safety. A three-ounce serving of beef from a non-implanted steer has 1.3 nanograms (one billionth of a gram) of estrogen, and an implanted steer has 1.6 ng. One half cup of cabbage has 2,500 ng (1,562 times more than beef), and an adult man produces 168,000 ng of estrogen/day. Are growth implants safe? Absolutely.

If you keep back replacement females, consider having them DNA-tested. The cost is about $30, and with a weaned heifer this fall worth $2,000-2,500, knowing more about her genetics seems like a wise investment. You will receive a printout that ranks each heifer on 15-20 traits. I cannot look at a heifer and predict whether she has good stayability, a measure of longevity. The goal of the test is not to find the “best” females, but to eliminate those with flaws. For me, a heifer that scores low on stayability is a feedlot heifer.

When I am walking cattle through the chute, I like to be efficient and perform any necessary procedures at the same time.

Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is our biggest disease challenge, and getting the first dose of BRD vaccine into these 2-3-month-old calves works well. Use a modified-live BRD vaccine to help these calves build immunity during a very low-stress time in their lives.

There are also bacterins for Mannheimia and Pasteurella, bacterial pathogens in the BRD complex, and I use them in some instances.

Clostridial diseases (Blackleg, etc.) are quite common, so a 7- or 8-way vaccine is often recommended. Pinkeye is a nemesis of cattle, veterinarians and producers. While this vaccine may not be as robust as those mentioned above, it can be helpful in reducing the severity of disease. Histophilus is included in some programs, but because of the high endotoxin load, I don’t recommend it in young calves.

With all vaccine questions, you should ask your herd health veterinarians for their recommendations. They will know the best products for your unique beef business.

Beef cows and producers hate flies. If you use a fly control product in your mineral, that should have been started in early April. Now, though, is a great time to treat the cows and calves. Insecticide ear tags remain one of the best investments for controlling face and horn flies. The goal is to wait until cows have about 200 horn flies per side (200 would fit in the palm of your hand) to apply tags. Put them in too early, and they have lost effectiveness late in the fly season. For most brands, the cows and bulls get two tags, and the calves get one. Be sure to remove them in the fall. This decreases the chance of resistance. And make sure the farm dog does not chew on them. They can still have enough insecticide to cause toxicity if many are chewed on or ingested.

I recommend a pour-on fly control at the same time you apply the fly tags, so you have a quick “knock down” of the flies.

Deworming cows and calves is a controversial subject, and the veterinary community has recently changed its position on it.

The diet of a 2-3-month-old calf is mostly milk. They may be starting to graze, but it is a minor part of their diet in June. Worm larvae live on pasture and crawl up blades of grass, hoping to be eaten. With such a small amount of grass being consumed, it is generally not worth it to deworm nursing calves.

Fall-born calves would be a completely different story. They are consuming mostly grass in the days before weaning, and deworming them at weaning is nearly always recommended.

Instead of deworming every cow every year, the latest knowledge suggests deworming cows that are “4 score and under 4.” We know that as cows age, they develop some resistance to internal parasites. So, instead of using medicine and money to solve a problem, we use good nutrition and the cow’s immune system. The “4 score and under 4” suggests that cows in body condition score 4 (thin) be dewormed along with all cows and bulls 4 years of age and under. Don’t forget the bull. They are actually more susceptible to worms than cows.

The injectable avermectin dewormers are ideal to use when cows are on pasture, as they have some residual effect and last longer than the oral products. If you deworm in the fall and then turn cows to corn crop residue, the oral products are fine. The pour-on dewormers are mostly absorbed by animals when they lick each other rather than being translocated through the skin. That is a concern to me as I cannot control how much of a dose a cow licks off.

When I make recommendations to producers about their beef business, my first thought is always, “What is best for the animals?” Castrating bull calves at birth or at the latest, by 2-3 months, is far superior to delaying castration. Giving vaccines and applying fly-control products helps the calf fight disease and external parasites. Controlling flies on cows decreases stress and improves animal welfare.

My next thought is, “What is best for the beef business as long as it does not compromise animal welfare?” Giving calves a growth implant at 2-3 months fits here.

Be an advocate for your animals and your beef business. It can be a win-win situation.