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Plan now for winter housing

Nutritional issues

Be aware of the challenges when switching cattle diets , in is important that there is a smooth transition from summer to winter diets to maintain a healthy rumen and keep animals performing at their best. When housing cattle we are asking them to switch from primarily grass to silage and concentrates, or an intensive grain diet. This can cause problems in cattle of all ages, though youngstock that are being weaned at the same time as being housed perhaps face the biggest challenge. Remember it takes 10 days for a rumen to adapt to a change in diet, so if you rush the job, then growth rates will be affected and serious health problems could soon follow.Suckled calves are often weaned at housing. Creep feeding is an excellent way of getting calves used to concentrate in the diet, and to maintain growth rate as their mother's milk output reduces and grass growth slows.

Pneumonia

Calves, that are so well adapted to being out in the fresh air, will be penned or grouped at housing, so it is important to minimise stress as far as possible. Weaning, transport, housing, disbudding, castration and mixing groups can all cause stress, so try not to expose cattle, particularly young calves, to several sources of stress at the same time.

Try to adopt an ‘all in, all out’ approach, cleaning and disinfecting the housing between batches, and above all, avoid over-stockingPneumonia is a multifactorial disease. Infectious agents, environment, management and the immune status of the calves are all-important factors in determining the outcome of an infection.

The four main viruses implicated are RSV, PI3, IBR and BVD, and you should talk to your vet about prevention, as there are a number of very good vaccines available depending on the virus(s) that are present on your farm.

Bacteria can also be responsible for either causing or exacerbating respiratory disease. One such bacteria, Mycoplasma bovis, is becoming an increasingly important cause of pneumonia. Outward signs are similar to other pneumonias, with cattle developing a chronic and persistent cough. It can be difficult to treat, as it will not respond to some antibiotics, and so a specific action plan will need to be put in place to sort out this disease.

Housing

Now is a great time to make sure your housing is up to scratch and will survive the winter period. Better to fix it now rather than when the temperatures plummet and the snow comes.Clean out and repair your gutters. It might seem a minor point, but poorly maintained or blocked guttering will result in large volumes of water coming off the roof and into your housing. This will increase the moisture levels in the building and ruin your clean dry straw. This will result in an increase in pneumonia and mastitis, and having to increase your bedding usage to combat this. Also remember that any water that you take from the roof can be used in water troughs or put into the drains, but if it overflows into your buildings then it is dirty water and will have to be disposed of via your slurry system.

Worming

In general adult cattle do not need to be wormed, but any youngstock should be. When gut worms and lungworms are ingested along with grass in the latter part of the grazing season, a proportion of them enter a dormant phase. In the following spring, these dormant worms re-activate and resume their lifecycle and cause disease. Dosing at housing is therefore very useful to remove both the dormant and the active worms and prevent disease in the following spring, and it also ensures that the worms do not depress the animals’ ability to make the most of their food during the housing period. If using a white drench then wait for a couple of days after housing to treat them, if using avermectins then these can be given prior to housing as there is a persistency of action. 

Westpoint Vet Paul Horwood BVetMED DBR MRCVS 

This article appeared in the September edition of South east farmer

Paul Horwood Profile

Paul graduated from the Royal Veterinary College in 2000. After graduating he developed his skills in farm animal medicine and surgery during a residency at the RVC, during which he spent time working in California on the very large dairies out there, and completed a research project looking at using milk samples to diagnose Johne’s disease in cattle.Paul joined Westpoint in 2003 and helped set up Eastpoint, the first branch of Westpoint, in Ashford, and has seen it grow to a large 3 vet practice now. Paul became a director in the Westpoint Veterinary Group in 2009.Paul obtained his Diploma in Bovine Reproduction, one of the top academic qualifications in the country, in 2008, and his main interests are in dairy cow fertility and Embryo Transfer.