This year’s outbreak of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) hasn’t died out yet, but has tapered off significantly as fall weather freezes out the insect vectors associated with the disease.
Cow-calf producers know that a dam’s body condition during late gestation and through early lactation has long-term and economically significant impacts on cow and calf performance.
According to an analysis published in the journal Science, antibiotic resistance among bacteria affecting food animals has nearly tripled over the past 20 years.
When loads of stressed, high-risk calves arrive at the feedlot, it often makes economic sense to treat them all with antibiotics to prevent an almost-inevitable outbreak of bovine respiratory disease (BRD).
Cattle feeders first began using mass treatments for newly arrived calves back in the 1970s, as a means of controlling outbreaks of respiratory disease or “shipping fever.”
This summer’s outbreak of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) appears to be losing steam, with no new states reporting positive cases in the USDA’s latest weekly situation report.
