Herd health and welfare
This is module 7 of the MLA More Beef from Pastures – The producer’s manual, which offers practical information to help lift the productivity and profitability of southern beef businesses.
It will help you to control the risk of disease in a cost-effective way and maximise the production potential of your herd.
What this module is about
- Know the common cattle diseases in your locality and whether they are likely to affect production.
- Map any historic areas or sites of old yards and stock routes for potential disease.
- Implement a disease management plan using veterinary advice.
- Vaccinate against specific diseases that can infect cattle and people.
- Seek veterinary advice for any unexplained health problem.
- Quarantine all introduced stock to prevent the transfer of infectious diseases.
There are 4 steps for managing the health and welfare of your herd
- Choose appropriate management practices and corrective treatments to prevent common diseases or disorders
Identify the potential health risks for your beef enterprise and develop appropriate disease management practices for each.
- Determine the risk and vaccinate for specific diseases
Identify the diseases that can infect your cattle (and people) and can be vaccinated against, and base the decision to vaccinate on whether the potential loss is more than the cost of a vaccination program, or if the disease poses a human health risk.
- Watch for sporadic diseases and disorders
Develop a routine to record details of diseased or deceased cattle in your beef enterprise.
- Prevent introduction of infectious diseases
Establish quarantine procedures for introduced stock to prevent the transfer of infectious diseases onto the farm.
Toolkit 7
These tools will assist the on-farm implementation of each step in this module:
- Conditions that exist for the development of common cattle diseases
- Distribution maps showing trace element and mineral deficiencies for southern Australia
- Diagnostic tools for common diseases
- Decision support spreadsheet to determine cost-effectiveness of common preventative treatments
- Management strategies to prevent disease
- Diagnostic tools to detect presence of diseases
- Conditions and vaccines for prevention of common cattle diseases
- Vaccination strategies
- Zoonotic diseases of cattle
- National Vendor Declaration (NVD) Waybill for cattle
- Disease information sources
- References to identification of toxic plants and noxious weeds
- Disease risk assessment protocols
- Diagnostic tools to assess disease status
- Strategies to lessen the impact if disease is introduced
- Health cost benefit calculator
Linkages to other modules
This module outlines the procedures required to manage a healthy cattle herd. Without implementing these procedures, producers cannot achieve the productivity gains possible from purchasing additional stock when a period of excess pasture is predicted (see Module 2: Tactical stock control), procedures to better utilise pasture (see Module 4: Pasture utilisation) and boosting weaner throughput (see Module 6: Weaner throughput).
Following these 4 steps for improved herd health and welfare will also help producers to meet market specifications - see Module 8: Meeting market specifications.
More information
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