Precondition Program Keeps High-Risk Calves Healthy

Becky Mills
Contributing Editor

By the time calves get to Steve, aka Beaver, Yoder's place, they aren't feeling too sporty. They've been taken away from their mamas, hauled to a stockyard, moved on to the order buyers, processed and finally transported to his Altha, Florida, operation. Thankfully, for the calves and their next owners, they're looking at months of TLC.

Here is Yoder's four-step program for getting calves healthy and keeping them that way:

1. THE PROCESS OF PROCESSING

Yoder leaves this step to the order buyer. "My skill set is reading cattle that are sick and need some help. That's where I spend my time on these high-risk cattle and why I get my order buyer to process them."

Processing starts with castration. Yoder says more than 90% of the calves he buys are still bulls. The calves are also vaccinated with a modified live virus (MLV) vaccine for respiratory diseases and a killed blackleg vaccine product. In addition, they're implanted with a growth promotant and dewormed, both with an injectable ivermectin-type product (macrocyclic lactone) and a drench white dewormer (benzimidazole). He uses the two different classes of dewormers to get as broad a spectrum of internal parasites as possible and to help prevent resistance to dewormers.

Yoder says the vaccines, dewormers and implants for the 400- to 500-pound calves cost around $17 to $22 per head. He does not revaccinate or give booster vaccines. "The stress of weaning is enough. If you let 'em rest awhile and come back and stress them again three or four weeks later, it can start the cycle of sickness all over again."

While Yoder's system obviously works for him, University of Georgia veterinarian Brad Heins says a case can also be made for both revaccinating at around 10 days after administrating the original vaccinations or giving booster vaccinations three to four weeks later, especially with high-risk calves.

"When cattle are under stress, including weaning, nutritional changes and transportation, research shows that the vaccines may not be effective on as many as 30 to 40% of the animals with a single administration." He says revaccinating or delaying vaccination to around 10 days postarrival can help get more of the cattle to respond, while booster vaccinations can help increase immunity when it starts to drop.

2. 60 DAYS OF GRASS THERAPY

Calves that have been bought and processed over a week's time are turned out in big grass traps, typically bermudagrass and or bahiagrass, with plenty of purchased high-quality bermudagrass hay and water. Yoder supplements them with a commodity blend pellet at the rate of around 5 pounds per head per day and uses a feed truck to put the pellets straight on the ground rather than in bunks. They also get a free-choice mineral with an ionophore.

"That's to get them to get up and come to the feed truck every day so we can monitor health," he explains. "During the 60 days of preconditioning, my goal is not necessarily weight gain, it's to harden them up and get them in good health. I don't want them to get fat." They generally average gains of around 0.5 to 1 pound per head per day.

There is also shade available, either a tree line, an artificial shade structure or both. "That's critically important," Yoder says.

Either he, employee Kelsey Jenkins or one of his four daughters rides through the pastures at least once per day to check the calves. The droopy ones are carefully walked to the chute and treated with antibiotics and possibly an anti-inflammatory. They'll also get a vitamin B12 complex injection and, if they're off feed, an oral paste probiotic. However, Yoder says, "I'm a firm believer in how you handle high-risk animals is more important than the products you use."

Heins says research on the use of probiotics -- which add beneficial bacteria or yeast to the gut -- and prebiotics, which feed the bacteria that are already in the gut, is a bit cloudy. However, he also says, "It won't hurt the calf and, depending on the product, can help." Heins adds this is especially true when the calves have been treated several times with antibiotics. That's because the antibiotics can kill both the good rumen bacteria and the bad respiratory bacteria, and potentially negatively affect feed digestion.

For the 1,500 to 3,000 head he buys a year, Yoder treats around 60% once and 25% twice. Averaged over the calves that aren't treated, he says it adds $50 to $60 a head to each set of cattle. Depending on the calves, the time of year and the weather, death loss varies from around 2 to 6%.

One thing he won't do during the preconditioning period is commingle. "Once you get past those six weeks, you can commingle them with others, but it is extremely critical that the cattle we buy in a week never get mixed up with any other cattle for six to eight weeks. There is a point and time where you can flip the switch, and the cattle are healthy, you can put them together, and your health management is still reduced by 90%."

3. GRASS AND MORE GRASS

The next step for the fall-bought calves is to graze high-quality cool-season forages like ryegrass or oats. Yoder works with area row-crop farmers who plant the forages as cover crops. He weighs the calves in and out, and pays the farmer per pound of gain. "If I'm grazing cattle and managing grass, it takes away from my focus of preconditioning cattle," he explains. "If I'm baling hay instead of looking after the health on cattle, it takes away my focus. I want to do the things I can't hire and hire the things that others can do. Then I can start more cattle."

This is when the calves start packing on pounds. Yoder deworms the calves again in February. Combined with the ionophore and original long-acting implant, as well as high-quality forages, it gives the calves the push they need to reach sale weights of around 800 pounds by April. Yoder sorts them, if needed, and ships them straight off the farmers' operations so they can plant the land back to row crops.

One thing the contract-grazers generally don't have to do is treat many sick calves. Yoder estimates treatment drops to around 10% or less. Death loss is usually nil, other than an occasional freak accident.

It's also open season on commingling calves, if needed. "I had one farmer who added 60 head a week until I brought him 420 head," Yoder says. "Every set of cattle had been preconditioned for at least 60 days. He grazed them through the winter without any problems."

4. SORT, SELL AND SHIP

While cattle are cattle and are creative when it comes to getting into predicaments, Yoder says, "We try to market an animal that nobody will ever have trouble with."

However, he does use discretion on when and where he sends them. His fall-bought and spring-sold calves are typically heavier English-bred types. They can be shipped anywhere from Iowa and Illinois farmer-feeders to large feedyards farther west.

Yoder doesn't buy many calves in the spring. The ones he does buy typically have more Brahman blood to cope with the heat, humidity and lower-quality warm-season grasses in the Florida Panhandle. When they sell in the fall, they usually go to feedyards in Oklahoma or Texas.

Yoder's primary goal for preconditioning and grazing the cattle is to add value. However, he has another reason: "It is an animal-welfare issue. If you took those same calves straight from the stockyard and shipped them 1,200 miles, they wouldn't do well. We keep them close by, so it isn't as much of a shock for them."

By the time they go through his preconditioning and grazing program, he says, "Our cattle are solid and bulletproof."

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