 You know every speaker that this evening has talked about the value of catalyst change dramatically Now I think it's wise for us to think about This whole issue of weaning stewardship and it goes but much beyond that when we have $1,500 calves. I Think we need to heighten our sense of animal husbandry And think about saving as many calves we possibly can it's not just at weaning time But it's at birthing time, and it's about getting cows pregnant I Think this has become more important all the time, and you know we've gone for many years We're thinking well. I don't want to spend too much on this cow. I don't want to spend too much on this calf Because it's not gonna It's not gonna pay back If you got $1,500 calves and $2,500 pregnant cows or whatever they are today that changes that whole equation You might may find yourself looking to your veterinarian more than you ever thought before because they now each Individual animal is worth that much more, so I think we just need to shift our focus Perhaps a little bit when when these cattle prices are what they are. I put this in here to start with Because I want us to think about all the things that come into an animal's life that results in stress That increases the risk of cattle getting sick and For all of these things except one and in this whole collage of pictures. There's no vaccines for it There's no vaccine to protect The stress associated with shipping there's no vaccine to protect the stress associated with bad weather There's no vaccine to so shit that to protect against the stress associated with just simple weaning Of co-mingling of cattle or even how we handle them So when it comes to weaning time, we need to be aware of our animal husbandry skills How we handle cattle How we handle them through the shoot because in many cases those are much more important areas For us then what vaccines we buy and use okay So what I want to do this evening there is no handouts with mine because we're just gonna look at pictures The reason I'm doing this is that I want us to be better at identifying cattle that don't feel well okay, I Want us to be able to identify cattle that are just thinking about maybe not feeling well Just think about getting sick so What I put up here is what is a pull like and I Think I actually a couple weeks ago presented this slide to a class at NDSU and then I realized You know their students in this class that don't understand the term pull What's a pull? Well a pull for all of us in this room and those of you listening just means an animal that doesn't look like it's doing very Well, probably second. I'm gonna pull it from the pan and treat it So we've identified whether we're on horseback or whether on foot or whether we're 100 feet away an animal That doesn't feel well We're gonna try and pull it out of the pan and make a better determination as to whether that animals sick or not But in order to do that we have to understand what a healthy animal looks like as well We have to have it in our minds and we need to be able to art I would say articulate this especially to people that don't understand animal behavior. What's a healthy calf look like? Well, they ought to be able to eat they ought to have a good appetite. They should be bright-eyed You ever tried to teach somebody what a bright-eyed animal looks like? It's not easy. Okay, but those of us that spend a lot of time around animals You can tell an animal with an eye that's just a little dull. They may be just starting to feel bad feel sick but it's a very a Very slight difference between that eye and a bright-eyed animal They should have good hair coats. They should be able to groom themselves and and a lot of times lick others as well I know all of us in this room have seen that and they should be curious Now sometimes they're curious from a quarter of a mile away Depending on their temperament Or others like those black steers up there will come right up to the gate If they're Holsteins, they'll try and take whatever you got in your pocket and pull it out So What are the signs and symptoms that we need to be aware of cattle that aren't feeling well? Okay, I would hope that anybody looking at this slide would have no trouble identifying this cattle is not feeling well Carl Carl talked about mud. I Think cattle sometimes just feel bad when they're in mud. Okay, I think Carl They're a little bit depressed when they got mud around them. So it sometimes makes the signs and symptoms even worse Just a little bit of an academic issue here It's not a big deal, but signs Are different than symptoms symptoms are saying that calf looks depressed Okay, that's a subjective term, isn't it? I don't know how depressed or if it's depressed at all We're talking about signs. That means I've stuck a thermometer in that cap and he's 104 and a half One's objective one's kind of subjective not a big deal. It's just kind of academic But we use all of those terms to determine whether an animal is feeling well The other thing I think it's important for us to recognize and most of the time we're talking about wean calves What's the number one? Body system that we're talking about that much that it's going to impact that calf It's the lungs. It's the respiratory system. That's the big one Far and away, but we also have to recognize that other body systems have become impacted with other pathogens or other metabolic diseases Could be a digestive upset could be musculoskeletal issues lame cattle cattle riding one another could be central nervous system issues like polio for example or could be your genital issues like Steers had become plugged with urinary calculus. Okay, so a lot of different body systems can be involved Respiratory system for background and calves by far and away the number one system that will identify I've actually put some cartoon pictures I created these a long long time ago, and I thought they still kind of fit because they They over emphasize some of the signs that you might see But really one of the first ones to notice is a reluctance to come to the feedbunk and sometimes you don't need to Fact I would argue sometimes it's better not to be in the pen to notice this even the feed truck driver or the guy Pulling the feed wagon. Can I identify this pretty quickly? Normally calves that are hungry that are being fed for the first time in the morning They're going to come up and eat if you got calves that are hanging back unless it's early in the weaning period Because they don't know how to come up and eat yet a normal healthy calf will come up to that bunk and and eat Okay, so reluctance to come to the reluctance to come to the feedbunk is a Is that a sign or symptom? Maybe just a symptom. Okay You know and for for those that don't understand animal anatomy even Which flank is is a lot of times going to be want the one that's hollow Well, it's going to be to where the rumen is so on the left side of the animals You're looking from the back end of that animal. That's the flank. That's going to be hollow Okay, if we see a hollow animal either it's not drinking or he's not eating or he's not doing either ones So gaunt hollow animals are abnormal and animals not gaining weight or keeping up With his pen main and any animal that lacks appetite At least needs further scrutiny. You may not like to pull them right away But you better keep your eye on that animal because some of these respiratory Pathogens can move very quickly and cause some pretty severe lung damage There's one this one actually happens to be on the on the right side that you're looking at here That's an animal hasn't drunk and hasn't eaten for some time. Is that animal sick at this point? Don't really know do we? Okay, don't really know that's an animal that has arrived at a stalker operation been there maybe Five six hours been on a long truck ride some of those things you can expect What's the first thing you notice about cattle that have been along on a long truck ride have been Through an auction barn through the ring and then a long truck ride. They want to lay down, don't they? They're tired. Okay, so don't confuse just being tired with being ill either There's one that was with a gaunt empty flank on the left side I will tell you what I took this picture. It was a cold rainy day. That animal is actually not sick He was just cold and wishing he was back in the Southeast some place Sometimes we get calves with coughing and nasal discharge and rapid respiratory rate What can increase respiratory rate? Well warm temperatures can an animal that's excited an animal that's been sorted many times an animal with a fairly Wild temperament one that's a little while will will expend more energy and have a higher respiratory rate If it's an animal with pneumonia it might have a higher respiratory rate as well Some coughing can be normal as they try and clear those nasal passages and and and trachea Nasal discharges. I don't get too concerned about it If it's a nasal discharge and the animal will not clean its nose Sometimes you come out in the morning and see these long ropey Snot coming out of the nose and it doesn't clean its nose. That's concerned to me. Okay? It's an animal. It's just getting up in the morning. It's got a little snot coming out He's able to stick that tongue up there and kind of clean things out. I'm not too concerned about that. Okay Drooped head and ears arched back Why does an animal do that? Well, he's not feeling well, right? That that's the definition that we sometimes use to indicate depression You know as that animal actually clinically depressed. I have no idea, but he's not feeling well, right? An animal like that. I'm gonna make sure I take a second look at him and sometimes those animals Even at that stage when you first notice them can have lung damage at that point what we're looking at here on this slide is the The right side. This is right lung tissue You can see that lighter colored lung tissue at the top of that picture That's relatively normal There are normal patches of lung tissue in there at the bottom there that One half of that lung on the bottom side on the lower part of that lung Wish I had a pointer here. I can't what does this thing work Carl? This thing will this thing work with a little pointer. Yeah, there you are. Okay, there we go So all of this area down on the what we call the ventral part of this long the lower part of this long Can't get air through it's all congested. It's all diseased It can't that animal cannot exchange oxygen in this part of the lung Okay, what always amazing to me is how that as animals can look so normal and have that much lung damage Crusted muzzle sunken eyes rough dry-looking coat if we see animals with sunken eyes What's that tell us right away? Dehydrated right that's a dehydrated animal. So an animal that's got dehydration sunken eyes He's got snot coming out of his nose. He's got a dry-looking hair coat I'm really concerned about that animal. Okay, that animal may indeed have a condition. That's Untreatable in fact this calf right here in that picture on the right here right this one This one actually has BVD was a persistently infected BVD calf and that animal once they become sick They don't recover they'll go ahead and die Some of those cattle will have labored breathing. They might be groaning grunting snoring or coughing If we look at this animal on the right here again Obviously doesn't have a gas mask like the cartoon does but it needs one see all that neck is extended here This animal's trying everything it can to move air that tells you right off that that animal's got pretty severe lung damage You're probably you're more than likely too late You may be able to treat that animal and may be able to salvage him But more than likely that animals not going to survive all the way through the finishing period This is an animal. That's a little bigger a little older and and we're too late on this animal Okay, it's got his neck extended. He's slobbering at them at the mouth. He's trying his best to move air That's too late of a pole and we're going to end up losing an animal like that Some of those animals have pretty severe lung damage. You can look see this long tissue here is almost totally involved In fact, if you could if I could blow this up a little Larger we're unable to in this room. This this looks like a Combination of a bacterial aniviral infection in that lung could even be BRs be involved in here This one hit down here in the lower left side This is we're looking inside from the from the back of that animal. We're peering into the thorax And what you see here with these little tags? That's what we call pleuritis. That's in humans We use the term pleurisy That means that that animal not only had an infection in the lung But it has an infection in the lining of the thorax in the pleura and you're getting these tags And when you get those kind of tags that animal not only has Difficulty moving air, but it's very painful for those animals to move there And that's when you sometimes get that grunting involved because there's pain associated with that. That's too late, right? You know, I'll just make this point right now because I may forget later on We really don't want animals to get to this point. Do we okay? We really would not we would really not Like to treat any animals at all when we either buy calves or our own calves our goal As cow calf people that keep our own calves and background or calves is to have as little sickness as possible to prevent as much illness as possible And it makes a difference not just on what vaccines we use But how those cattle are raised from the time that calf is in utero till it was calf was born till we wean them So our animal husbandry skills are important all the way through the life of that calf in preventing some of these things that occur here It's not just a bug. It's how that animal was raised One of the things I see too and some of these cattle that are sick They may start having other symptoms as well. They may show lameness an abnormal gait The ones I've seen that are really tired And maybe just starting to get sick if the pens are dry You'll notice those back feet kind of dragging the dirt a little bit and I'll kick up a little dust That's a really early symptom that that calf's not feeling well He may be doing everything he can to hide his symptoms from you when you see that that foot starting to drag in The pen surface kept kicking up a little dirt You may want to take a little bit better look at that calf even though he's trying to fool you and getting you thinking that He's not ill. Okay Sometimes we indeed have real lameness going on that calf in the upper left hand corner there That's a calf that actually has mycoplasma infection in the joints This calf here is showing us signs of foot rot pretty severe foot rot at this case So all lameness I just want to make this point all lameness is not foot rot It can be injury. It could be infectious foot Infectious lameness like this mycoplasma calf or indeed sometimes it can be foot rot I show this here because this is one of the most frustrating lamenesses that occur This is a hoof here. That's actually been cut Lengthwise and so what you're looking at down here is the sole This is the front part And what happens on some of these cattle particularly if they've gone through not necessarily auction markets But if they've been sorted a number of times and they tend to be a little bit Wilder type of cattle. They can actually wear the bottom sole of their foot off and in it You get introduced into here some filth and some bacteria and they get what we call toe abscesses It's one of the more frustrating lamenesses to to treat It doesn't the foot never looks swollen and yet that infection is there and will stay there until you try it until you Open up those toes and allow drainage to occur So if you have cattle that are extremely lame on one foot Don't see any swelling will barely put that foot down Do everything they can to avoid touching that it's like having the worst blister in the world underneath one of your fingernails That's how painful that is You you have to go in there and and lift up those feet and actually examine the feet and put a hoof tester on there And see if you can't find that little abscess because they're very painful those cattle won't do very well ultimately Ultimately cattle with these toe abscesses It will crop it will travel up the hoof and bust out on that at the top of the hoof wall And you'll get some drainage coming out here why then it's too late because usually the joint here has been destroyed when I'm trying to show down here is just a Hoof that I nipped off at the end just to create a little bit of drainage This calf up on the upper right here This is when we Sometimes get a little bit carried away with our hard-grain diets or highly fermentable carbohydrates in the diet We actually can cause cattle to be foundered Or in or have what we would call laminitis And those cattle will walk pretty Characteristically trying to keep their feet out in front of them trying to spread the rate out as much as they can Those feet are very painful just like they would be in a horse that's been foundered so sometimes you get those things going on in a particular penicatal This is my coplasma arthritis and the reason I'm showing you this lung over here is that that infection you usually I should say almost always starts in lung tissue and Then to use a term for for from cancer it would metastasize if you will or get to the joint tissues This is a knee joint that have opened up and here's Wonderful dried up pus in that joint these cattle are extremely lame very hard to turn this calf around even with Even with the best antibiotics they that we have I will tell you that some veterinarians have actually tried to inject antibiotics into these joints With some having a little bit of success if it gets this bad, it's not going to work Okay, and I bring that up with the veterinarian involvement because with cattle the price they are Don't consider them to be a total loss But you need to catch these as early as you possibly can to in order to prevent it from getting to this stage loaner animals Deserve special attention and I will reiterate this again many cases sick animals will try and hide among their pen mates Just so that you can't see them I've even had cattle walk up to the bunk stick their head in the bunk and not eat anything just to hide from you But sometimes those loaner animals are exhibiting or having other issues going on That may warrant a little bit more attention and that's when we get into these central nervous system disorders Okay, I got two different ones here the one on the upper right here is a polio calf Typically those calves will have seizures that eyeball will be kind of sometimes pointed up, but they'll have seizures and You know sometimes we get polio calves in the background yard or in the finishing yard When we get thymine deficiencies or sometimes when you have Too high of sulfur levels in the diet and that's been associated with sometimes are Are feeding our byproducts that dried or the distillers grains that we currently use and so sometimes you'll get these polio cases Okay, we call them CNS. We call them brainers and layman's terms and you're not always sure what the cause is Treatment is not Very successful when they get to this stage this calf down here is a calf that we call nervous coxidiosis They're always interesting their ears will be kind of out and they're kind of tremble And try and move those cattle to a treatment facility and invariably they will stumble and fall with their front legs going down first And then they will go into seizures as well You can treat those calves and it seems like 50% case fatality rate on those calves The only reason we call nervous coxidiosis at this stage is that it seems to be associated With coxidiosis, but we're not sure what actually causes the symptoms or the yeah that we see associated with the brain The only other CNS disease I talked to you about in North Dakota, and that's rabies every once in a while We give rabies and cattle. Okay Sometimes we get cattle with diarrhea Even in big cattle backgrounding operations and finishing operations again with with Frank blood and in the or blood in the stool like this one has over here We might that might be coxidiosis It also could be salmonellosis And it's wise to remember that when you see this kind of condition Probably it's okay to think about coxidiosis, but don't forget about salmonella because that can be a Disease that people can get as well This is just a couple. This is a close-up picture. What I would characterize is a Pool of manure in the pan that I associate with beam and a calf that's acidotic This is looking at the digestive tract of a calf In this case this calf had BVD in its system High fevers and cattle normal fever normal temperatures and cattle would be 101 and a half plus or minus two Typically I will use a hundred and three point five and higher to tell to indicate a calf that has a fever that I need to be Concerned with others you will use a hundred and four and higher If the environmental temperature is hot outside, it's easy to get those Those fevers up a little bit even a hundred and three a hundred three and a half is not uncommon But if I'm seeing signs and symptoms associated with a calf not feeling well needs a hundred and three and a half I'm definitely going to Intervene with some type of treatment in a calf like that We occasionally see heart problems in cattle Sometimes histophilus is an organism that can cause cardiac lesions in this case got obsessed right in the wall of the heart Right here. That's pus coming out of the wall of that heart. Sometimes we get cattle that don't have enough Pumping ability in their in their circulatory system and fluid starts to build up Sometimes in the brisket sometimes under the jaw This calf over here was a somewhat of a parasitized animal that you hardly ever see anymore But these cattle here there's virtually no treatment when you get to this stage So, I mean we covered a lot of body systems in a short period of time But I think it behooves us all to get used to or I do a better job of observing Observing cattle behavior finding cattle that are sick almost just when they're thinking about Getting depressed Observe undisturbed cattle from a distance cattle that are strange to your situation will try and hide themselves If cattle laying down in the pen don't just let them lay there haven't get up They may be lame. There may be some something else that you may be aware aware of And then always work cattle in a low-stress manner and work them slowly Okay talked about a lot of things covered a lot of ground But I think our animal husbandry skills today are worth more probably in the last number of years and will be for at least a Number of years ahead and we need to do the best job at stewardship and take care of these cattle as we can Any questions at all out there anything you're wondering about as we went through those At times rather Disgusting pictures, but sometimes they really make the point when you can see some of the pathology That occurs in these cattle with various things that that happens to them any questions or comments