Farm Animal Track

This session will cover common recommendations for colostrum management in calves, with a primary focus on dairy calves. Additionally, it will cover recent newer recommendations and suggestions on colostrum management that focus on different benchmarks for monitoring successful colostrum management and avoiding colostrum-associated health issues.

Learning Objectives:

1. Past and current guidelines for quantity and timing of colostrum delivery to calves
2. Guidelines for determining quality of colostrum
3. Guidelines for determining success of colostrum delivery
4. Potential calf health issues with large volumes of colostrum

This presentation summarizes a retrospective analysis of 236 bovine necropsy submissions from Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, demonstrating that copper and selenium deficiencies are widespread in southeastern cattle, contributing to ill thrift and chronic morbidity. Deficiency is common across all production stages, with potentially outsized impacts on reproductive performance. Correlation against USGS geochemical data indicates that local topsoil trace mineral concentrations do not reliably predict hepatic mineral status, highlighting the importance of herd mineral status assessment and supplementation.

A review of swine necropsy techniques, common gross findings, sample collection, and testing considerations to maximize the diagnostic yield of field investigations.

This session will cover guidelines and recommendations for nutrition, environment, and vaccination usage to get this year’s replacement heifers off to the best start possible so they can be productive two years from now.

Learning Objectives:

1. Nutritional recommendations for young calves (with a focus on dairy heifers)
2. Facility/environmental recommendations for healthy calves
3. Vaccination recommendations for young dairy calves

This session will examine the NSAIDS available for use in cattle, how they work, and how to best use them in cattle. It will also cover pain management recommendations for cattle.

Learning Objectives:

1. NSAIDs available for use in cattle
2. Mechanisms of action of the common NSAIDs
3. Considerations for pain management in cattle

This session will utilize case-based discussions of real-life farm troubleshooting visits to discuss proper nutrition in dairy herds.

Learning Objectives:

1. Using trouble-shooting skills and observations to figure out common dairy herd health/performance issues
2. Transition cow practical nutrition

Learning Objectives

1. Understand normal small ruminant reproductive physiology in relation to pregnancy and parturition.
2. Recognize normal and abnormal (dystocia)eventduring parturition. 
3. Describe initial evaluation of a small ruminant in dystocia.
4. Understand multiple approaches to resolving dystocia in the small ruminant including assisted vaginal delivery,fetotomy, and c-section.
5. Explain post-partum treatment and care for small ruminants.

This lecture will focus on the role of trace minerals in immunity and reproduction discussing the importance of the on-farm liver biopsy procedure to assess trace mineral status.

 Learning Objectives

• Understand trace mineral requirements, functions & metabolization.
• Understand antagonists and nutritional challenges of trace mineral supplementation.
• Understand the reasons to biopsy and the liver biopsy procedure

This lecture will discuss the rumen biome including the importance of Megasphaera elsdenii on cattle health.

Learning Objectives

• Understand rumen anatomy, physiology, and microbial environment
• Understand rumen microflora and microbial fermentation
• Understand the effect of microbial fermentation and ruminal acidosis on cattle health and production
• Understand the role and utilization of Megasphaera elsdenii

Learning Objectives

1. Describe the potential benefits and limitations of remote drug delivery (RDD) systems for treating cattle in production settings.
2. Compare remote drug delivery with conventional hand-syringe administration with respect to drug delivery reliability, pharmacokinetics, treatment efficacy, and tissue effects.
3. Identify animal, equipment, and operator factors that influence the safety and effectiveness of RDD, including dart selection, needle length, projectile velocity, injection-site selection, and sterility.
4. Evaluate the potential animal welfare, human safety, food safety, and Beef Quality Assurance concerns associated with the use of RDD systems.
5. Explain how the Veterinary-Client-Patient Relationship (VCPR), Extra-Label Drug Use (ELDU), and the Animal Medicinal Drug Use Clarification Act (AMDUCA) affect the legal use of medications administered through RDD systems in food-producing animals.
6. Discuss the implications of RDD use for antimicrobial stewardship, including risks associated with incomplete drug delivery, improper dosing, altered routes of administration, treatment failure, antimicrobial resistance, and withdrawal times.
7. Determine situations in which RDD may or may not be an appropriate treatment option based on animal health, handling facilities, animal stress, human safety, and availability of conventional restraint.
8. Apply a risk-benefit approach to decisions regarding RDD use that considers treatment prognosis, drug selection, animal and human safety, disease transmission, food quality, and the economic consequences of treatment failure.

This lecture will explain the steps and importance of designing an effective beef vaccination program for overall herd health.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the different types of vaccines
• Understand the steps to designing an effective vaccination program
• Understand the economically important diseases that can be included in a vaccination program

This lecture will explain how early events in beef calf development impact performance even in the feedlot.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the benefits of early calf health on later performance
• Understand the role of rumen development in young calves
• Understand the role of trace minerals to improve the overall health of beef calves

Learning Objectives

1. Describe the epidemiology and economic impact of bovine respiratory disease (BRD) in high-risk stocker and feedlot cattle.
2. Identify animal, procurement, management, and environmental factors that contribute to BRD risk and classify cattle according to relative health risk at arrival.
3. Apply clinical assessment tools, including DART scoring, rectal temperature, lung auscultation, and thoracic ultrasonography, to the detection and evaluation of BRD.
4. Evaluate the strengths and limitations of visual observation and other diagnostic approaches for identifying cattle affected by BRD and predicting treatment outcomes.
5. Explain the multifactorial pathogenesis of BRD, including the roles of stress, viral infection, bacterial pathogens, commingling, and antimicrobial resistance.
6. Develop an evidence-informed receiving program for high-risk cattle that integrates vaccination, BVD control, stress reduction, nutritional management, and appropriate processing practices.
7. Evaluate the timing and potential benefits and limitations of vaccination strategies in high-risk cattle, including arrival versus delayed vaccination.
8. Determine when metaphylaxis is appropriate and incorporate cattle risk classification, expected morbidity, clinical appearance, cattle source, and antimicrobial effectiveness into metaphylactic decision-making.

Learning Objectives:

1. Compare the prevalence, distribution, and epidemiologic patterns of lameness among cow-calf, feedlot, and dairy cattle production systems, including differences in commonly affected limbs, claws, and production groups.
2. Differentiate infectious from non-infectious causes of bovine lameness and recognize how the relative importance of these disorders varies according to production system, age, and stage of production.
3. Identify the major non-infectious causes of lameness in cattle—including sole ulcers, white line disease, and interdigital fibromas—and relate their development to hoof biomechanics, conformation, nutrition, housing, and management.
4. Explain the pathogenesis and recognize the clinical presentation of common infectious causes of lameness, including foot rot, digital dermatitis, and septic arthritis.
5. Integrate clinical findings, lesion location, lameness severity, and appropriate diagnostic procedures to develop differential diagnoses for cattle presenting with lameness.
6. Develop evidence-based treatment and prevention strategies for common bovine lameness disorders using appropriate hoof care, environmental and management modifications, antimicrobial therapy, analgesia, footbaths, and other interventions when indicated.
7. Evaluate the animal welfare, productivity, and economic consequences of lameness and use epidemiologic and clinical information to guide individual-animal and herd-level management decisions.

Learning Objectives:

1. Recognize and assess lameness in cattle using changes in posture, gait, stride, weight bearing, spinal posture, and other observable indicators of locomotor dysfunction.
2. Apply a standardized locomotion scoring system to characterize the presence and severity of bovine lameness and identify animals requiring further examination.
3. Perform a systematic examination of the bovine foot and distal limb to localize the source of lameness and identify swelling, hoof lesions, foreign bodies, abnormalities in joint mobility, and other clinically relevant findings.
4. Explain the biomechanics of weight bearing in the bovine foot and relate differences in load distribution between the medial and lateral claws to hoof overgrowth and the development of lameness.
5. Describe and apply the principles of functional and corrective hoof trimming to restore appropriate claw proportions, improve weight distribution, reduce excessive focal pressure, and identify hoof lesions.
6. Select appropriate treatment modalities for common causes of bovine lameness, including corrective trimming, hoof blocks, antimicrobial therapy, analgesia, and surgical intervention based on clinical findings and lesion severity.
7. Develop an individual-animal and herd-level approach to lameness management that integrates accurate diagnosis, record keeping, treatment decisions, management changes, and preventive strategies to improve cattle health, welfare, and productivity.

Lecture Objectives

1. Discuss the causes of neonatal
2. Discuss common treatments for neonatal calf diarrhea
3. Discuss prevention strategies for neonatal calf diarrhea with a focus on bovine rotavirus

Lecture Objectives 

• Discuss the main endoparasites affecting small ruminants in the SE US
• Discuss antemortem and postmortem diagnostic tools
• Discuss management and control strategies for varying herd sizes
• Discuss strategies for student and client education