Animal Medical Centers

Large & Small Animal Care in Northwest Iowa

Spring 2011 Newsletter

It has already started out to be quite a year for everyone with volatility in many aspects of our lives. We are seeing record high prices for corn with prices at over $6.50 heading toward $7.00. Hog futures are increasing and are heading toward $90-$100/cwt for June and fed cattle prices are at record highs of $112-113/cwt. We are also seeing a big increase in oil prices causing gas to reach over $3.50 and diesel nearing $4.00. Furthermore, we are in the time of year with a lot of fluctuation in our weather. One day we have warm temperature causing snow to melt and the next we are below freezing with wind chills below zero. Hopefully we will see some stability to these markets and weather soon and we can provide you stability to the health of your animals and livestock.

PQA Plus Site Assessments

The end of 2010 quickly came and so did the required deadline to have your site assessed for the PQA Plus Program. Fortunately, most packers have allowed leniency to producers for completing their site assessments. We know there a lot of sites that have not been assessed, but they will be required to be assessed by the end of 2011. Remember, you must first have a premise identification number for each site. These can be obtained through the Iowa Department of Land and Stewardship. Please contact the clinic and we can go over the process and set up a time for your site assessment. Be sure to check with you packer for the exact deadline for having your site assessed.

Swine

It has been a very interesting winter for the health of our pigs. The last few years the health stability of swine herds has been very good. However, this winter there has been a re-emergence of many swine diseases that have disrupted the health of most herds. We have been seeing and diagnosing a lot of PRRS, SIV (flu), H. parasuis (HPS), Strep. suis, A. suis, TGE, and a myriad of many other infectious agents. We tend to see these diseases and health issues occur in a cyclical nature, especially with PRRS, with severe breaks occurring about every 2-3 years. Along with PRRS or flu we commonly see secondary bacterial infections such as HPS and Strep and a significant increase in morbidity and mortality and fallback pigs. While these secondary infections are very treatable with antibiotics, we continue to see health issues occur such as a chronic coughing, thumping, and wasting pigs. When viral diseases infect pigs, antibiotics are not effective in treating these diseases. The reason we use antibiotics is because we are treating or preventing secondary bacterial infections. Viral diseases cause damage to the lungs and will suppress the immune system and allow the colonization of HPS and Strep, which causes further damage. Once the damage is done to the lungs they will not heal and become more susceptible to future insults from other infectious agents. Pigs will not be able to fight off diseases as effectively and do not have full lung capacity. This is why we see chronic coughing, culls, and continued mortalities. We have to remember that when we have a barn full of chronic pigs, we already have severe pathology affecting the pigs’ lungs. Our treatments recommendations often appear ineffective, but we are preventing further damage to the lungs by treating current bacterial infections, not previous infections. Until we can consistently and effectively prevent initial viral and bacterial infections and minimize lung damage, we will always have to deal with the headaches of chronic pigs.

Have we seen your cat lately?

Annual (biannual for senior cats) wellness exams are important for maintaining the long-term health of your cat. Wellness exams include a complete physical exam and updating vaccines. They are also a great time to discuss and address changing nutritional needs and dental care. Additionally, they provide an opportunity to perform baseline blood-work to screen for common illnesses seen in cats. Cats are very good at hiding early signs of disease but early detection is key in managing many diseases that affect older cats. Yearly blood panels help us detect slight changes in values and often we can address issues even before your cat begins to show symptoms at home. If it has been awhile since we have seen your cat call us today to set up an appointment for a wellness exam.

Assisting with calving difficulty

Calving difficulty, dystocia, is an important economic problem in the U.S. Beef Cattle Industry. The economic impact of calving difficulty is estimated to be around $350 million each year, and approximately 3 percent of all beef calves born in the U.S. will be lost due to calving difficulty. Several factors can play a role in causing calving difficulty, including: heavy birth weights, abnormal fetal position, limited pelvic area and the female’s age. In order to recognize dystocia and know when assistance is required, it is important to be familiar with the different stages of labor.

Stage 1: Uterine contractions and cervical dilation begin. The cow will exhibit behavioral changes such as: moving away from the herd, restlessness, and her tail may be raised. This stage typically lasts between 2 to 6 hours and ends when you see the presentation of the water bag.

Stage 2: This stage is considered “hard labor”. Powerful uterine contractions are occurring and the cow will usually be lying down and pushing. This stage ends with the birth of the calf and typically lasts between 30 minutes up to 2 hours.

Stage 3: This is the stage when the cow will clean. The afterbirth and placenta will be expelled from the cow, usually within 8 hours after the calf was born.

Calving difficulty can be somewhat manageable, and remember that good nutrition and proper sire selection can go a long way to help improve the percent calf crop. It is important to learn more about the proper use of calving ease, EPD’s, when selecting a sire for your herd.

Calving Supply List

Equine Newsletter Topics

Spring is normally the time we encourage annual booster shots to be given for several reasons. The American Association of Equine Practitioners has established a basic recommendation of “core” vaccines to be given to all equines regardless of age, use, or location. Those vaccines are to protect for sleeping sickness, (Eastern and Western Encephalitis), West Nile Virus, Tetanus, and Rabies.

Sleeping Sickness, West Nile Virus, and Tetanus are done in combination as one injection. Rabies is done by an additional injection which can be done at the same time. Spring boosters are recommended for the encephalitis viruses (EEE, WEE, WNV) because they are spread by mosquitoes and a booster is best done just before the annual emergence of the mosquitoes.

Additional equine diseases for which vaccinations are commonly done are influenza (Flu) and strangles (Strep equi). These vaaccines are not considered to be core vaccines and more commonly done relative to specific needs. The professional consensus is that the intranasal form of each of these is considerably more effective at preventing the target disease as opposed to the IM injectable form of the vaccine. With that said, the injectable influenza vaccine is being requested for frequently because it is now available from several companies in a combination with WEE, EEE, WNV, and Tetanus that is commonly referred to as the “5 way” in lay discussions.

Hopefully this sets some minimums, but if there are any unanswered questions about vaccines, please give us a call. We’ll try to tackle some deworming questions in future issues.