Song Rongyuan Boehringer Ingelheim Key Account Manager for beef cattle business
Master's degree, graduated from Yangzhou University ruminant nutrition and feed major, in 2011 joined the German Bollinger company ruminant business department, successively served as East China, national key customers, southern region business manager, during the period of dairy cattle pasture management, perinatal management, mastitis prevention and control and calf management and other important breeding technology links have a deep understanding, has accumulated a wealth of front-line production experience.
Since 2018, he has been responsible for the development of beef cattle business, and has a rich theoretical basis and practical experience in the prevention and control of BRD (bovine respiratory disease) and parasite management in fattening farms, and has formulated guidance suggestions for the admission process of fattening cattle and suggestions for the prevention and control process of calves for many domestic farms, which have achieved remarkable results.
<h1>Introduction</h1>
In the United States and North America, where the breeding industry is developed, the vast majority of large-scale fattening farms will have professional veterinarians to develop a set of beef cattle transportation and on-site treatment standard operating procedures for the specific conditions of different farms, and 96% of the U.S. large-scale fattening farms with more than 1,000 heads will take measures against BRD at the time of admission (including the use of vaccines against BRD-related viruses or cyclolide antibiotics).
In China, with the continuous development of the beef cattle industry, domestic beef cattle industry practitioners are gradually aware of the serious problems caused by BRD and parasitic infections, and try to do some related prevention and treatment operations through various means, but most of the farms do not have their own, complete and professional standard operating procedures. Therefore, with reference to the relevant practices of the beef cattle industry in developed countries, if each farm can scientifically and reasonably formulate its own admission process specifications, it will greatly improve production problems and help the healthy development of farms and increase profits.
Producing 1 kg more meat and losing 1 cow less - the 2nd Boehringer Ingelheim Beef Cattle Health and Nutrition International Forum was held in Beijing
<h1>The main factors affecting the profitability of fattening farms</h1>
Beef cattle breeding and dairy cattle breeding have commonalities in the perspective of industry health and profit factors, that is, breeding, breeding, management and prevention, covering beef cattle breeds, nutrition management, herd management and disease prevention and control. For fattening farms, it can be mainly divided into three links: cattle source and breed, feeding management, and health care and epidemic prevention. Under normal circumstances, domestic fattening cattle are mainly Simmental hybrid cattle or local hybrid cattle, so the breeds are relatively fixed, and their respective farms also have their own breeding models and specific feed resources and formulas, which are relatively stable. Then, under the premise that the cattle supply and feeding links are basically fixed, the factors affecting whether the fattening farm makes money and the level of profitability are likely to be concentrated in the health care and epidemic prevention links that the farm itself can focus on controlling.
Health care mainly refers to the prevention and treatment of common infectious diseases, respiratory syndrome (BRD), parasites (digestive tract problems) and other disease problems caused by different farming models. Therefore, under the premise of stable cattle source and perfect feeding management, if you want your pasture to be more profitable, you should focus on doing a good job in the health care and epidemic prevention link, which is also the most core factor for the cattle elimination loss and weight gain loss brought about by the fattening farm after the cattle are purchased and returned to the farm.
The current distribution of cattle and the trend of trade flows in China
Where are Chinese beef cattle distributed? According to statistics, China's fattening cattle are relatively concentrated in the northeast, northwest, central plains and southwest four regions. Cow breeding is mainly concentrated in Heilongjiang and Jilin in the northeast, Mengdong region in Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang in the northwest, Henan, Hebei and Shanxi in the Central Plains, and Guizhou and Yunnan in the southwest. The main stocks of fattening cattle and cows are located in the north, and the calves and rack cattle produced are traded throughout the country through the trading market.
China's vast territory, due to the regional characteristics of cow breeding, fattening cattle breeding inevitably to the trading market to select cattle, buy cattle, and then transport the cattle back to their own pasture, after the fattening period and then sell and slaughter. Before the cattle come to your farm, the trading market is likely to have gone through many links, farmers, cattle brokers, the transfer of multiple different trading markets and the problem of mixing herds, so an unavoidable problem is transportation stress. Transport stress refers to the animal body in the process of long-distance transportation in different places: cattle are subjected to environmental changes (temperature and humidity, wind and rain), transportation process (loading and unloading, bumps, noise, crowding), psychological pressure (capture, drive, gregarious), hunger and thirst (fasting or feeding restriction), dietary transformation, potential pathogens and other stressors of the combined effect of adaptive and defensive responses, is one of the important factors affecting animal production, and once caused by the disease loss is huge. Especially in China, under the condition of the industry characteristics of special north-to-south breeding and north-to-south cattle, the problem of transportation stress and the losses caused by it have been infinitely magnified, where calves and rack cattle come from, and whether they need to be dewormed, how to deworm directly related, because parasitic management is directly related to the breeding mode and distribution area of cows and calves, and the types and distribution of parasites in vivo and in vitro are not the same, which requires special attention and targeted treatment. Where the cattle are located is closely related to the design of the admission process, because the breed, source, transportation distance, temperature and humidity differences in different locations, and climatic conditions all determine the risk of infectious diseases and the incidence and severity of BRD in the cattle, and also determine the design of the operation of the cattle entry process.
Healthy and active animals can resist the pathogenic bacteria they encounter. The disease of cattle is actually directly related to their own immunity. If under stress conditions, the autoimmunity of cattle is seriously affected, and the amount of pathogens in the environment is increased due to lack of management measures, it can directly lead to the onset of disease in cattle. For example, if the environment of the cattle farm is not well controlled, the ventilation and warmth of various factors are not done well, and the disinfection work is not implemented in place, resulting in too many germs in the environment, exceeding the limits that the animal's own immunity can carry, then the animal may become ill, respiratory diseases, digestive tract diseases can be caused.
In the United States, a survey of diseases on large-scale fattening farms found that respiratory disease syndromes, especially transport fever and transport stress, ranked first. Some farms are tethered, and there are many limb and foot diseases, but limb and foot disease often occurs in the late fattening period, rather than during the stress period within one month of cattle transport to the farm. Therefore, for fattening farms, respiratory diseases, especially transport fever caused by transport stress, are the first in incidence, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1
<h1>BRD is the biggest problem plaguing the beef cattle industry – respiratory diseases</h1>
BRD is caused by a variety of viruses or bacteria caused by bovine pneumonia, transport fever, bronchitis, etc. collectively known as bovine respiratory disease (BRD), often occurs in newly introduced cattle and autumn and winter, the severity of the disease is related to cattle autoimmunity, stress intensity, feeding management, etc., clinical manifestations of high fever, decreased appetite, mental depression, dyspnea, cough, salivation and so on. Few respiratory problems are caused by a single pathogen, and brd is caused by a variety of causes, with viruses, bacteria, and stress factors blending together often lead to disease in cattle.
At present, there is a lack of effective vaccines to control BVDV, IBR, BRSV, PI-3 and other viruses, which will cause continuous immune suppression in cattle, destroy the defense system of the bovine respiratory mucosa, and affect the function of the first line of defense of the respiratory tract to exclude pathogenic bacteria. After infection with the virus, it will destroy the villous system on the surface of the respiratory tract, so that Pasteurella, Manella and the common bacteria in mycoplasma have the opportunity to smoothly enter the lungs through the respiratory tract, the bronchi cause pneumonia, and then the inflammation of the lungs leads to lung tissue damage, which eventually leads to "rotten lung disease". Data show that when your cattle are sent to the slaughterhouse for slaughter, you will find that there are twice as many cattle with rotten lung and lung damage than the cattle with pneumonia recorded on the ranch, which means that in the fattening and breeding process, half of the BRD-infected cattle you did not find, the underlying disease or the veterinarian did not expose it in time.
Financial losses from BRD
The economic loss caused by BRD is mainly divided into two types: direct cost and indirect cost. Direct costs mainly include loss of death, treatment costs and labor costs. Death loss is the main cost, cattle death, animal, feed, processing, and corral costs will be lost; the United States has statistics that the cost of cattle disease for treatment, the average cost of each cow per treatment is about 23.6 US dollars, similar to the average BRD incidence drug cost of common domestic fattening farms, may be lower. Indirect costs are perhaps more important to focus on, because often we don't see: average daily weight gain is affected, feed efficiency is reduced, butcher quality is reduced, and cattle performance is reduced.
Figure 2
In Figure 2, 0 refers to healthy cattle, 1, 2 and 3 refer to the number of treatments after the cattle have experienced pneumonia, and the three boxes refer to net income, daily weight gain, hot slaughter weight and slaughter quality. From the figure, we can see that the average daily weight gain of cattle without pneumonia or disease reached 1.47, and the daily weight gain of cattle who had experienced 1/2/3 pneumonia and experienced 1/2/3 treatment dropped to 1.36/1.30/1.24 respectively. The losses caused by increasing weight may be more than the losses caused by the elimination of death that we can see with the naked eye.
Figure 3
In addition, according to the BRD tracking of nearly 50,000 beef calves in the Iowa area between 2002 and 2009, as shown in Figure 3. If the cattle do not have BRD after admission, their feeding days, average daily weight gain, and weight gain cost will be much lower than the treatment of cattle once or even more than twice, so we must pay attention to the health of the cattle, only healthy cattle can get better weight gain.
BRD control and treatment
There are usually three ways to control BRD: the first is whole-herd prevention, the second is the control of high-risk cattle, and the third is individual treatment of sick cattle. Different treatment measures are required or can be taken for different BRD risk herds. But either control regimen involves the choice of controlled drug. The selection of drugs to treat BRD usually requires the following conditions: First, to be sensitive to the pathogenic bacteria that cause BRD, to be effective against Mycoplasma, and to be effective against Pasteurella, Manella, etc. Second, to be able to quickly find bacteria, quickly reach the lung target organ to kill the bacteria. Third, play a role in sterilization and bacteriostatic. Fourth, emphasis should be placed on the long-term efficacy of drugs, which are focused on being able to prevent new and ongoing infections while reducing stress. Fattening cattle are most afraid of stress after arriving at the scene, if you need to give medicine to cattle every day, every time you catch cattle, drive cattle, inject, infusion will bring stress to it, affect immunity, and then cause cattle to continue to be infected, so long-term effect is very important, ranch personnel, especially veterinary personnel should pay more attention to this. Fifth, minimize the negative impact on the digestive function of the gastrointestinal tract. Some cattle onset time is too long, the subsequent weight gain effect is far inferior to other cattle, on the one hand, it may be because BRD causes lung lesions, affecting the amount of oxygen inhaled and metabolism of cattle, thus affecting its weight gain and development. On the other hand, it may be that the drugs given to the cow every day are not targeted drugs, and in the process of continuous medication, while killing the pathogenic bacteria that cause lung diseases, it affects the rumen or intestinal microorganisms of the cow, thus affecting the digestive function of the cow, and then affecting the weight gain benefit of the cow.
Bronchoalveolar lavage fluids – the most scientific and accurate technique for identifying BRD
There are many ways to identify the cause of BRD, including nasal swabs and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, which are more accurate but difficult to perform. At the same time, it can also be used to verify the efficacy of drugs, such as the efficacy of Tricillin. After injecting the appropriate dose of zyclidine into the cattle, do bronchoalveolar lavage solution at different times of the day, detect the concentration of zychnyline in the recoiled lavage solution, when more than 10 days or even to the 14th day, the concentration of zycling in the lavage solution is higher than the lowest concentration to kill bacteria, indicating that the efficacy of zyclim can last for ten days or even longer.
From the characteristics of BRD treatment drug selection, it can be seen that the targeted function is very important, and Zhuan Keling has done relevant verification experiments. For cattle treated with Zykerin, the detection of the intestinal flora ecosystem, found that there will be no negative impact, while detecting the concentration of the intestinal blood of the intestinal blood of the intestinal component grammycin, lower than the minimum inhibitory concentration, indicating that Tricillin is a sensitive and effective brD pathogen Mycoplasma, and the long-term efficacy can be up to 10 days, while not affecting the rumen and intestinal microorganisms, does not affect the digestive function of the drug, admission control BRD program can be considered, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4 Above: There is no significant change in the entire intestinal flora ecosystem
Figure below: Gamithromycin intestinal concentration is low, the duration of action is short, and it is much lower than that of the intestinal microflora MIC
The meeting was moderated by Liu Tingting, Marketing Manager of Boehringer China Cattle Business, and Song Rongyuan, Key Account Manager of Beef Cattle Business
<h1>Parasites are "thieves" who affect the economic benefits of fattening farms - digestive tract diseases</h1>
If a cow is doing well in terms of nutrition, feeding, management, health, etc., but the parasites are not in place, it is equivalent to having a "thief" consume the most essential nutrients in the cow every day, constantly taking away the daily weight gain of the original profit, this loss seems invisible, but when your cow enters the trading link, its profit level can explain everything. The parasites in the body bring more subclinical effects, including nutrient loss, impaired digestive function, impaired circulatory system, and continuously affect the digestion, absorption, metabolism, weight gain of the cow in invisible places in the body, and finally we see that the daily weight gain of the cow is not in place, and the level of profitability is not good, as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5 Iceberg diagram of clinical and subclinical effects of parasites in vivo
Common parasites are divided into two types: in vivo and in vitro. Among them, the body parasites usually have protozoa, nematodes, trematodes and tapeworms, the most common is nematodes, we do fattening cattle admission process, with ivermectin, albendazole or other components of the deworming drug, mainly for the body of the nematodes. Ectoparasites include lice, mites, flies, ticks, etc., as well as some blood parasites. For example, in the northern and southwest regions, the common scorchworm disease in June to September every year will cause different degrees of cattle elimination or cow loss, and the blood parasites in it are usually secondary to tick infection, so it is recommended to first consider the prevention and control of ticks for scorched worm disease.
Parasite Problems in China: Results of Domestic Epidemiological Investigations after 1980
First, through the analysis of the survey reports of the parasites of beef cattle (including grazing and house feeding) across the country in recent decades, it was found that the prevalence of infection positivity rate was more than 50%.
Second, the internal parasites are mainly nematodes, of which the detection rate of Xiabo nematode, Cooper nematode and blood spear nematode is higher.
Third, ectoparasites are more common in mites, and ticks are endemic in some areas in specific seasons.
Fourth, it is recommended that all cattle in the fattening farm be dewormed when entering, and recommend subcutaneous injection (pest control) deworming to ensure that the quality and quantity can achieve the predetermined effect of deworming.
Fifth, for trematodes and tapeworms, it is recommended to develop a targeted deworming program after confirmation.
Sixth, establish a scientific and reasonable parasite management assessment system: one is the egg count in the feces, and the other is to do weight gain assessment.
By visiting fattening farms in different parts of the country, we found that the following problems are common for deworming: common farms are doing deworming, but it is not clear what insects are repelled, nor do we know whether they have been expelled after deworming, and it is not clear how to evaluate the quality of the deworming effect. Therefore, the follow-up Boehringer will do a lot of work, so that everyone can clearly do a good job of deworming and drive out the "thief" of the parasite.
<h1>A scientific and reasonable admission process can help the healthy development of the farm and increase profitability</h1>
Why should we do the entry process? Respiratory and digestive tract problems are the two most important disease prevention and control links in the admission process. In the United States, more than 96 percent of large-scale fattening farms with 1,000 heads take action against BRD (including the use of vaccines or antibiotics) at the time of admission, and almost all fattening farms (99.8 percent) are dewormed in their entire populations. The formalization of deworming is severe and there are multiple increased stresses of deworming, and there is an urgent need to re-understand the criteria for deworming management and evaluation. The elimination loss caused by the domestic entry transportation fever ranges from 2% to 50%, and the average level of domestic fattening is 1.1-1.4kg/day, according to the current situation of fattening cattle prices, once the mortality rate exceeds 15%, the possibility of profitability is minimal, and it seriously affects the daily weight gain of cattle in the later stage. We must gradually change from the previous empirical operation to the scientific operation, take the initiative to design a reasonable entry process for the cattle, and eliminate or minimize the possible losses.
The admission process is common in domestic ranches
The admission process of common fattening farms in China is basically divided into four steps: the first step is to enter the feeding, the second step is to use drugs (antibiotics), the third step is to use foot-and-mouth vaccine (FMD), and the fourth step is to enter the insect repellent. The operation of different farms will be adjusted according to different situations, such as some farms FMD immunization before deworming; most fattening farms are worried about increasing stress, FMD immunization is done 10 days or even 2 weeks or 20 days after admission, and deworming is done 7-10 days or 15 days after admission.
At the heart of transport stress is the problem of bovine respiratory tract disease (BRD). Assuming that we use long-acting antibiotics (effective against Mycoplasma, Pasteurella, Mansella, and Haemophilus sleeping) during the admission process, why should we put foot-and-mouth disease vaccine immunization and deworming behind? Why not try to synchronize foot-and-mouth disease vaccine immunization and deworming with antibiotic prophylaxis at the time of admission? This is one of them. Second, we found that there are many kinds of antibiotics that can be used in the admission process, such as florfenicol, telmicocin, cefotafuran, penicillin, etc., as well as antipyretic metamizole, analgesine and other drugs, these drugs need to be injected once a day, that is to say, every injection you have to catch a cow, drive a cow, and increase the stress on the cow. So why don't we do antibiotic prophylaxis, deworming and vaccine immunization at the same time at the node where cattle enter the feeding? Proper deworming can make cattle healthier, more complete immune systems, better immunity, and will benefit immune vaccines to produce higher antibodies. This is also common practice abroad. At the same time, all the entry operations are done at once, reducing the stress caused by multiple operations, which may be more meaningful for the cattle themselves than multiple operations.
Figure 6
Figure 6 The three protocols are the most commonly used admission drugs and drugs for the treatment of BRD respiratory diseases learned from visits to pastures in the northeast region, and it is found that treatment according to this protocol takes about 10 days on average. However, when the drug is used for 10 days, the total cost has reached about 130 yuan. In addition, the continuous use of these drugs that are not targeted drugs will be distributed throughout the animal body, which will have a negative effect on the rumen and intestinal microbiota, which means that such a long period of medication will bring a very serious negative impact on the daily weight gain of subsequent cattle.
Admission process common in North America
More than 93 percent of fattening farms in the U.S. and Canada complete all admissions within 3 days (72 hours), and about 60 percent of these farms complete all on day of admission. The common admission process in North America is roughly divided into the following steps:
First, the cattle rest: rest for 12-72 hours before formal processing, the most scientific approach is how long the cattle are transported, let it rest for as long as it arrives, and then gradually start other admission processing.
Second, registration certification: individual registration of cattle, ear tags.
Third, vaccine immunization: more than 92% of farms are immune to BRD vaccine, more than 72% are immune to Clostridium vaccine.
Fourth, parasite control: more than 90% of the pastures enter the whole group to deworm.
Fifth, injectable antibiotics (preventive treatment): 40%-71% of pastures undergo preventive treatment, and preventive treatment can reduce the incidence of BRD by more than half.
Sixth, castration and angularization: increase safety and beef quality.
Seven, implant hormones: increase daily weight gain and feed conversion rate.
Among them, the sixth castration and the seventh implanted hormone are basically not done in China. We value rest, vaccination, deworming and antibiotic injections more, and unlike in North America, they pay more attention to these steps at the same time. Moreover, there is a more special situation in China: we lack effective vaccines for the effective control of BVD, IBR, BRSA, PSI, etc., and we can only choose appropriate antibiotics to control other pathogenic bacteria that cause BRD. However, there is nothing to do about the virus, and more to reduce the negative impact on the immunity of cattle as much as possible from stress management, herd nutrition management, environmental management and other aspects. Injecting antibiotics for preventive treatment can first overcome the difficulties associated with the detection of diseased animals, because we cannot test each incoming cow, and then treat and medicate; secondly, it can reduce the risk of disease caused by the healthy animals that are exposed, some of the diseases in the cattle are sick, some are healthy, some of the symptoms are not found, if not treated in the whole group, the incidence of infection is more than a certain proportion, and it is likely to cause new infections to healthy cattle; third, reduce the labor force related to the detection and treatment of diseased animals. After a good admission process is completed, less than 10% of the cattle may need to be treated again in the next month, but an ill-designed admission process may require 80% of the cattle to be treated again in the next month.
Bollinger Company Admission Process Recommendations
Combined with the mature and common admission process in North America, and according to the actual situation of domestic ranch front-line production, Boehringer also gave suggestions for the admission process suitable for Chinese fattening farms.
First, after entering the farm, let the cattle get an appropriate time to rest (according to the distance and time of transportation of the cattle, it is recommended to take 12 hours), provide sufficient drinking water and feed, and try to complete the treatment steps within 24-72 hours of arrival.
Second, carry out certification and registration work such as ear tags and weighing.
Third, the herd health risk assessment form (Figure 7, the specific data standard should be formulated according to the actual situation of the farm) is used to assess and confirm the risk level of the herd for subsequent treatment. High-risk cattle: If the risk of disease confirmed by the risk assessment method exceeds a certain proportion, step 4 of the process is entered, and all the cattle entering the market are treated with drugs for this batch. Low-risk cattle: FURTHER DART assessment methods were used to identify and confirm BRD-affected cattle, and sick cattle were screened for drug treatment.
Figure 7
Whether the incoming cattle need to be injected with antibiotics in the whole herd, the factors considered by the fattening farms in North America include: the weight of the cattle, the distance of transportation and the weight loss during transportation, the source of the cattle, the pretreatment of the farm, the dairy or beef cattle breed, the history of antibiotic use in the farm cattle, and so on. Among them, the weight, source and pretreatment of cattle are the most commonly considered factors. Cattle with smaller weights or complex sources are high-risk herds and need to consider the use of high-quality antibiotics in the entry process.
Fourth, choose the appropriate antibiotic (zummithrin (garmimycin injection) has the characteristics of rapid onset of action, strong sterilization, and long-acting single needle) for treatment and confirm the therapeutic effect. After treatment, the staff is required to continue to observe the animal's performance using the DART method (Figure 8), and if any of the symptoms fail to recover, ongoing treatment is required.
Fifth, the cattle are injected subcutaneously to deworm (pest control (1% ivermectin injection) and kill a variety of parasites inside and outside the body, with broad spectrum, high efficiency, economy and safety) work.
Sixth, according to the situation of the received cattle and pastures, choose whether to partially dehorn and castrate.
Seventh, the cattle processing situation is recorded in detail, and then the cattle are moved into the corral in groups.
Figure 8 Exposé of the DART standard
Key points of the admission process analysis
The stress of fattening cattle admission is a problem that every fattening farm will face, and it is also the most important problem for every fattening farm owner and management personnel, but often the efforts made are not as expected. Therefore, it is recommended that domestic fattening farms fully consider all aspects of factors, refer to The Admission Process Scheme proposed by Boehringer, formulate a suitable admission stress treatment process scheme for themselves, and scientifically manage the cattle herd. The following suggestions can be used for reference:
First, different breeds of cattle, different sources of cattle, antibiotic admission treatment plan will be different.
Second, according to the specific situation of the cattle, it is necessary to reasonably distinguish/evaluate the high-risk cattle and low-risk cattle at the time of entry, so as to judge how to formulate the process next.
Third, scientific deworming, rational use of vaccines, scientific concepts to replace empiricism, insist on speaking with data, and speak with ultimate profits.
Fourth, within one month of admission, the incidence of BRD, foot-and-mouth disease, treatment prescription, medication cost, and weighing data are recorded in detail, which are used to regularly quantitatively evaluate the process plan and continuously improve.
Fifth, regular review, batch summary, with the survival rate and daily weight gain of each batch of fattening cattle to prove profitability, and then use data to continuously improve and evaluate, so that profitability is getting higher and higher.
In short, I hope that every cattle breeder will design and formulate a suitable fattening cattle entry process according to the recommendations and the actual situation of the pasture, accumulate data, clearly raise cattle, and make profits in a down-to-earth manner!
The Bollinger Rumination Team strives to serve China's beef cattle farms
Boehringer Ingelheim
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