Working Ranch Blog

Can you believe that July is alomst over and August is soon on it's way. In Dalhart we have had our share of summer heat, but to be honest it's not that bad. I think it's supposed to be 77 on Sunday. So yeah, who is complaining? I could be in Arkansas where it's 100 and it only cools off to 80 at night. Yeah I think I will stick to wearing a jacket out the door at 4 in the morning.

Last week we had several days at or above the century mark, and it was perfect timing. At the feedyard, we received several loads of four and five weight calves from Florida. First a 28 hour truck ride for these small calves is no great luxuary, and add on the heat when they arrived, that just spells disaster in the making. But don't worry, we have things under control.

A couple things to figure in the equation here. First, anywhere in the summer heat is not a good place to be weaning and handling 400 pound calves who are just coming out of the swamps. Second, a 28 hour truck ride will make any animal tired. Shoot, it makes me tired to make a 2 hour drive to Amarillo. Third, teaching a calf to drink out an automatic water tank and eat harvested feedstuff from a bunk is no easy task. I don't care where you are.

So keeping all of this in mind, we set out to make a plan for these little buggers several weeks ago. When the calves arrived at the yard we were on our best cattle handling skills. Talk about putting your skills to the test. These calves are not used to being handled by people on foot and don't think twice about running smack over you. So we used horses to move them around and when on foot we had to be quiet and calm. Next we put them straight to water. Not so much that they would tank up on it, but enough where everyone could get a drink. Then we moved them to a receiving pen where there was a large stock tank and a bunk full of fresh hay (the closest thing they will see to a pasture of grass while they are in a feedyard. We left them alone for at least 48 hours; allowing them to calm down and fill back up on hay. When we processed them, all of the pushing was done horseback to reduce the stress and excitement and all excess noise was removed from the processing area. We also started working them just before sunup, so they could be moved to a home pen with fresh water before it got warm.

Now we have these buggers on fresh hay, a starter feed that is mostly roughage, and we are keeping an abundant supply of fresh water to them. In the next several weeks we have a plan to slowly grow them on a roughage based feed and acclimate them to a feedyard environment. If their immune systems weaken and the threat of illness comes we are prepared to supplement them with some chlorotetracycline (an inhibitor of bacterial resistance and treatment for respiratory conditions) to prevent a large amount of illness and stress on the calves. Now I know some people will criticize the use of any drug on a healthy animal, but MUCH consideration is given before any drug or vaccine is given to healthy cattle. A rule of thumb that I have heard many times is look for a 10-15% sickness rate within a few days span before ever considering mass treatment with drugs. This means we are looking to prevent a large amount of sickness in a group of cattle that is showing signs of illness, not giving drugs just as a means of prevention to healthy animals.

We have been well off with these calves in the first days and I will be sure to keep you up to date. How much thought do you put into caring for high risk cattle in your operation's management strategies? Send me an email (rjlgoodman@hotmail.com) or look me up on Facebook and Twitter. Until next time --ARranchhand

CattleFact: BRD (bovine respiratory disease) is the most common cause of morbidity and mortality in feedyard cattle operations. BRD is caused by a combination of stress, bacteria, and viruses, but can be prevented by careful management strategies and planning. Preconditioning cattle, vaccination programs, weaning, and careful handing are all parts of a managment plan to prevent occurence of BRD.