Preconditioning offers health, bottom line benefits

It's not too early to start thinking about how to add value to your calves. Preconditioning can help prepare calves' immune systems for the stress of weaning. These preventive health measures also prepare calves for the commingling, transport, weather and other pressures they likely will face later in life.

"The bottom line is that enrolling calves in a demonstrated, branded preconditioning program is the right thing to do to prepare cattle for the next phase, reduce stress and prevent diseases like bovine respiratory disease," explains Gerald Stokka, DVM, Pfizer Animal Health. "Everyone needs to do their part in ensuring a healthy animal from pasture to plate. When producers input just a few dollars per head, the animal experiences health benefits throughout its life."

Health benefits:

--Helps prevent illness from BRD;

--Helps prevent death loss from BRD, which one study cited was responsible for 50 percent of cattle deaths;

--A study has shown a 45-day preconditioning program can keep cattle more than four times healthier than non-preconditioned calves.

Improved health goes hand in hand with improved performance and feed efficiency, which also leads to economic benefits.

Economic benefits:

--Preconditioned calves can earn up to $29 more per head than non-preconditioned calves on sale day;

--Decreases labor costs;

--Healthy cattle returned $14 per head, while cattle treated two or more times lost about $254 per head;

--Suggested premiums for improved carcass merit have been estimated at $37 to $59 per head.

8/18/08
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Date: 8/8/08

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