Pfizer: Control BRD To Help Protect Profits
07/22/2010 09:14AM
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Maximizing pounds of gain and carcass value is just as important in upbeat cattle markets as it is during down times — and controlling bovine respiratory disease (BRD) helps ensure beef producers can keep everything they’ve earned.
“When cattle are healthy, they perform better.” says Daniel Scruggs, DVM, Pfizer Animal Health Veterinary Operations. “When cattle get sick, they’re not going to perform to their potential. Feed and input costs are not cheap, so why put them into cattle that are not going to convert efficiently?”
Many producers focus on the death loss attributed to BRD, but treatment rates of 40 percent to 50 percent or higher can be expensive when considering labor, treatment cost and reduced weight gain. Lower carcass weights and reduced quality grade are two ways BRD can steal from producers’ pocketbooks.1 Studies have shown that cattle with lung lesions had lower average daily gain (ADG), carcass weights and marbling scores than steers without lesions.2
“Performance and premiums are important in any market,” Dr. Scruggs says. “Whether you sell on a grid or on live weight, managing the impact BRD has on your check is important. The risk of BRD is always going to be there.”
To help manage that risk, researchers have shown that cattle treated with EXCEDE® (ceftiofur crystalline free acid) Sterile Suspension on arrival remain healthier and gain better.3,4
“EXCEDE has proven itself time and again as an effective means to manage BRD risk, either on arrival or for treatment,” Dr. Scruggs says. “The seven-day therapeutic benefit of EXCEDE has been proven in clinical studies, and provides solutions to manage sick cattle that shorter acting antimicrobials cannot provide. Less trips through the chute is worth a lot.”