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Natural Resistance

N

Northern Rancher

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Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Messages
12,247
Location
saskatchewan
I've got an interesting little case study going on in the home corrals. A few years back we didn't get the cowherd poured-really never saw any lice except on maybe 5 head out of a couple hundred. This year we have a couple introduced cattle in with the heifer calves-they are showing a fair amount of lice. More than enough to put a parasitic challenge on the young calves but the heifers are clean. The winter we've had and on a straight hay diet any drag would show on them. I'm starting to think the more we do for them the more we have to do. Kind of heresy from a guy who did lice surveys for a drug company one year but it is food for thought. Maybe if we culled the small % that need help we could eliminate some of the costs. I know the one cow with lice has a bull calf is donating his nuts to the "testicles for stock dogs foundation'.
 
It cost's 50 cents a head to pour 500# calves a little over a dollar a cow.Not exactly a money saving ordeal.
 
That's not the whole point-if it isn't needed why do it. Pennies grow into dollars-at the time we quit the generics weren't available. I'm not recommending anybody quit doing anything but it is interesting.
 
Well I do know my uncle never poured,vaccinated or fed mineral. He fed salt with selenium and got along fine. I leased those cows for 3 years and at that time we did'nt pour them either and they stayed clean but his deal was 30 years in the making. He also neighbored other cattle ran with all the inputs plus salebarn cattle across the fence so they were exposed to other cattle. He did lose a bunch of cattle one winter but I think those were some antique Highlanders he purchased then kicked out eating willows and swamp grass in a piece of land to wet in the summer.All that hair hid their true body condition. I just don't like lousey animals so a dollar a head looks cheap to me.
 
I bet if you got the whole pen in and scraped them, they would all have lice.
Maybe some more than others, but they'd all have some. The poorer
doing cattle have more lice than the thriftier ones, granted. That's how
parasites work.

We've done lots of fecals over the years and invaribly the young cows
have a bigger worm load than the older ones, because their immune
system isn't as developed as on older cattle. But even the old ones
show some worm load; just not as much.

I've seen cattle that run together, some have more flies than the others.
We had one 2 yr. old heifer several years ago that the flies were really
covering; I checked and she had had twins and it must have hurt
her internally. Her body score was fine, but her haircoat wasn't as good
as the others. That fall she was open.
Because of having twins, and possibly getting injured internally,
her immune system was compromised.
 
Watch out NR-- someone might start calling you Kit with his genetic parasite resistent cattle :wink: :P :lol:

My cows may end up a little naked this spring...We usually pour for lice a month or so before they begin calving-- but this year with our Winter from Hell and 100" of snow- the corrals and alleyway/chute/tub was so full of snow/ice that there is no way you could work them...

IF this white stuff ever leaves- and the corrals don't float down the Creek with the flooding- we may be able to pour them (and the calves) as we load them to haul out to pasture...
 
I bet not enough to bother them-I toured a couple neighbors through them and they are coming to the same conclusion. The meats program we sell into doesn't allow endectocide anyway so it's nice to see that cattle don't have to suffer to meet the protocol. When I was doing lice counts with the vets we say a bit of 'bale shredder' sickness-cattle were getting dusty and itchy and rubbing hair off also. I think as an industry we grossly underestimate a cows ability to thrive at being a cow without our help.
 
Northern Rancher said:
I bet not enough to bother them-I toured a couple neighbors through them and they are coming to the same conclusion. The meats program we sell into doesn't allow endectocide anyway so it's nice to see that cattle don't have to suffer to meet the protocol. When I was doing lice counts with the vets we say a bit of 'bale shredder' sickness-cattle were getting dusty and itchy and rubbing hair off also. I think as an industry we grossly underestimate a cows ability to thrive at being a cow without our help.
Click to expand...

probably the one sentence i've read on here i completely agree with.
 
I sure don't want lice on my cattle.
When on cows/calves they can affect the calf for quite awhile. I've seen lice crawling on calves at branding that
looking at their topside you wouldn't know they had so many lice
on their belly and between their hind legs.
Lice robs the cow of milk production among other things.
They are a parasite and they do nothing good for animals.

Since we started spraying our cows during the summer for flies
and/or using the cattle oiler during the summer, lice on our cows
in the winer were reduced. It must have interrupted the life cycle of the louse during the summer.

In order to really kill lice, you must pour them twice. Usually
ranchers get by without doing that, but not always. You are to
treat them 14 days apart to get the sucking lice and then the
eggs that hatch two weeks later. That is their life cycle.


Anyway, to each his/her own. :D
 
The last two year I started putting out a fly mineral tub with the cattle and It really helped them. I have tried dust bags, oilers and fly tags but never like the results. The tubs do cost $ but in the long run it has paid off with a increase in cattle breeding in a timely matter. Some guys that border some of our pastures dont do anything and those cow will be standing in the corner fighting flies and mine are out grazing.

We didn't pour on our cows this winter alot went into why we didn't and you can sure tell the diffrence that we didn't do it this year.
 
BRG said:
There are plenty of other things we can all cull for before parasite control!
Click to expand...

True...it's not the cow's fault. Strictly environmental and more of a nuisance to the cattle than a real detriment to health and growth.
 
We haven't used any such product for 10 years, pour-on or injectable. I can't say what type of effect it had with any degree of accuracy, because of all the other changes we made - dropping annual vaccinations, dropping liquid lick tanks, opting for May-June calving as opposed to Feb-March calving, etc. I will say that the switch to Galloway and Highland cattle made a noticeable difference. Almost all of the original Angus and Angus cross cows we had that had always been given a pour-on, lost hair. Some lost alot of it. I have yet to see a Galloway cow lose hair. Some rub trees, but I have yet to see one with a bald patch anywhere.

We kept back heifers out of Galloway sires and AngusX cows over the years, and culled any that lost hair from rubbing. Not immediately of course, just as the opportunity presented itself when cow prices were decent and so on. It's just another thing I look for and make notes of for each animal. When they've got a few strikes against them for various things, they go when we get a chance to sell/butcher them.

While I disagree with Kit on several things, I do agree that if we can get out of the way with our cures in a bottle and open our minds, eyes and ears, livestock can show us some amazing abilities to survive and reproduce.

The other key for me is the research I've seen showing the results of pour-on products on dung beetle and other insect/micro-organism populations in the soil. Not good.
 
The first heifer calved today-- which is a daughter of Whitney Creek Bannon 730T (Lazy Bar B Leinie)-- which was the heifer calf that I pictured a couple years ago that was born on a -20 night- and survived (minus ears and part of the tail)-ugliest heifer on the place- but a survivor- and which I last year bred back to her sire- Whitney Creek Bannon 730T ... An 81 lb bull calf....
Nice quiet heifer- that is an easy keeper- and we will see what her double bred Bannon of Wye bull calf does.....

100_0022.jpg


This poor tree is going to take a beating...Because of 3 foot of snow/ice in the corrals and alleyways- I didn't get any of the cows poured for lice before they calved--and with the 40 degree temps- everything is itchy..
Hopefully I can get them and the calves poured before I haul them out to pasture....
100_0024.jpg
 
PureCountry said:
She's awfully flat from hook to pin for a Bannon, wouldn't have expected that, but she's in good shape and obviously doing what's most important. That's quite an old tree OT - maple?
Click to expand...

Yep and she is about the quietest thing you could work with- altho her mother and the little Bannon bull are too..

Leinie's (named after the oldest Granddaughter) # is 16311318 -- which gives her both good and not so good on the bottom... Her mgs is Strategy-- which never impressed me-- but on the dam side her granddam is Galpin Blackbird 715- sired by Miner Tribute 705... I've had some great luck in years past with the Miner Tribute daughters/granddaughters- only negative drawback to me was he threw a lot of BW--- and an old cow Glen and Stephanie bought from Hansens that they had good luck with... Dam is a framier cow than I like- and the first year- I didn't think she would pass my enviroment test- looked like hell when she got thru raising this first calf- but came back bred- and is keeping on...Bagged up and about ready to calve again.....

The tree is a willow tree- I think a Golden Willow... Loved by the cows in the spring as a scratching tree- and the Grandkids during the rest of the year as a play tree.. :wink:
 

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