We understand that strong health and immunity is a beef herd’s greatest asset and sets the stage for what production goals can be achieved. If a herd is experiencing a health challenge, profitability and performance are at risk – both on pasture and in the feedlot – making health a valuable commodity across all segments of the industry.
Health Challenges Capitalize on Stress
When it comes to beef cattle health, immune challenges like Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD), remain constant obstacles despite collective industry efforts to reduce them. For BRD alone, an estimated $3+ billion is spent annually on prevention, treatment and production losses.
Stress reduces immunity, making it easier for disease pathogens like viruses and bacteria to gain a foot hold within the animal. As an industry, we try to reduce stress as much as possible, but stress events are often unavoidable. Weaning, transportation, vaccination, castration and dehorning are all part of the cattle management and marketing system. These stressors often cannot be avoided, making negative health events feel impossible to escape.
Illness is not a singular momentary event in time; disease opens the door for subsequent health issues and sets a calf back to a point where it may never catch up to its herd mates or pen mates. Immune challenges, at any age, lead to antimicrobial treatment, and possibly even mortality. If an animal does recover, it will likely finish with a lighter carcass weight or require additional time and money to finish at a similar carcass weight.
Vaccines and antibiotics are valuable tools to protect animals from these costly disease setbacks. Vaccines require a response within the animal to boost immunity. The question is, are the calves you’re vaccinating positioned to respond positively? Antibiotics can also help mend an animal back to health, but calves also need adequate immune function to participate in the healing process. These tools should be secondary resources and will be more effective when they’re coupled with strong immune response from a robust immune system.
How can you make sure cattle respond positively to your prevention efforts? And, how do you prevent your customers from spending time, money and additional resources on cattle that can no longer meet their production potential?
Increase Cattle Immunity
Each step or transition in the beef lifecycle presents disease with an opportunity to attack the immune system. Incorporating Zinpro into herd health plans is a proactive step to prepare calves for life-stage transitions and prevent negative health events. With enhanced immune systems and the ability to have more aggressive immune responses, cattle can survive transitions and even thrive through stress events and respond better to additional health interventions.
Paired with Zinpro, vaccines are more effective, demonstrating a 90% improvement in vaccine titer response creating more available antibodies to fend off disease. An immune system primed and supported by Zinpro requires less antibiotic intervention, reducing treatments by 20%.
With optimal health, illness-based performance loss can be avoided. Feeding Zinpro® Availa 4® to cow/calf pairs will result in better fertility, less sickness and heavier weaning weights; feeding Zinpro Availa 4 during weaning or receiving calves will result in fewer pulls and greater average daily gain of newly received calves. Get the most out of your cattle investment by feeding Zinpro Availa 4.
Zinpro is a beef health solution that supports every calf through its entire lifespan and is backed by over 50 years of industry-leading research and expertise. Our team of beef experts partner alongside you to develop a customized approach that can improve the health of your beef herds.
Maximize the Effectiveness of Your Herd Health Plans
You know that the best investment you can make for your herd is taking a proactive, pre-emptive health plan approach. Partner with our team to prioritize immunity and prevent health-related losses from day one. You can connect with one our representatives to discover how Zinpro solutions can complement your veterinary herd health plans.
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