26 NEBRASKA CATTLEMAN February 2024 PRODUCTION HERD HEALTH AND REPRODUCTIVE MANAGEMENT IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS JESSICA WESSON | CONTRIBUTING WRITER One of the most important tools a cow-calf producer can have is their herd health plan. Unfortunately, sometimes this isn’t realized until after disaster strikes, but at that point it’s too late. Russ Daly, Extension veterinarian at South Dakota State University, presented at the Range Beef Cow Symposium, and he said there are many different definitions for what a herd health plan consists of. “For some producers a heard health plan might be just a vaccine program written down on a piece of paper,” Daly said. “For others, it might be avoiding those clinical disease wrecks. No matter what your definition of a herd health plan is, I think we all kind of know when it goes wrong.” Daly has plenty of experience with tough herd health situations through his time as the Extension veterinarian. He’s helped many producers overcome their challenges. He says the top three most common calls he receives are Johne’s Disease, bovine viral diarrhea (BVD) and calf scours. During his presentation, Daly shared three examples that he has seen over the years to help other producers understand why a herd health plan is important. His first example was about a herd from southeastern South Dakota. A producer had a sick, 4-year-old cow that was presenting with weight loss and diarrhea. He had bought the cow and did not know her origins. The vet visited and diagnosed the cow with Johne’s Disease. This disease can take two years or longer to present itself after the initial infection. One case he recently encountered was a producer who originally thought his cattle were suffering from pneumonia. The local veterinarian confirmed this and set the cattle up on a treatment plan. As months passed, the producer realized his cattle were not getting better. In fact, some of them were
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