Roy Lewis Dvm

I have always said farmers put a lot of effort, along with their veterinarians, into selecting their annual vaccination protocol. They should. Vaccines cost money and effort is required to administer them. We must maximize the immune response to get maximum protection of our livestock. This is good from both a biosecurity standpoint as well […] Read more

This article will describe ways to pull a calf either by hand or by calf jack. Different malpresentations are dealt with slightly differently. When pulling one must be very cognizant of the stress this puts on both the calf and cow. With the ease of calving bred into most of today’s herds pulling is a […] Read more

Good selection for udder and teat conformation goes a long ways to preventing mastitis problems down the line Even though we think of mastitis as more of a dairy disease producers still need to be vigilant about it in their beef herds. With higher milk production and cows being retained in our herds longer both […] Read more

Abortion can be one of the greatest sources of loss to the cow-calf and purebred beef producer from fall onwards. There are a great number of causes for abortion. Unfortunately some 25 to 50 per cent of these causes go undiagnosed. This article outlines the most common causes of abortion in beef cattle and discusses […] Read more

There have been several instances in my practice where an unexplained delay in calving has resulted in stillborn or weak calves because the calving process was too long. I would hazard a guess most producers have run into this problem at one time or another. Although not much research has been done on this subject, […] Read more

With better nutrition and management and a higher incidence of twins in the exotic and Holstein breeds some larger herds can have up to a 10 per cent twinning rate. With the odds of 50 per cent of the twins being mixed sexes it is no wonder freemartins are not an uncommon occurrence. Remember though […] Read more

In order to measure how good a job you or the processing crew are doing with implanting it really pays to periodically check your technique. A few extra seconds at the chute making sure implants are placed cleanly and properly returns benefits in increased gains. Much has been said about implant strategies but we don’t […] Read more

Times are changing and with change comes new ways we should look at our chronic pens. Each decision should be based on sound medical judgment, economics and the possibility for salvage. All these factors must be weighed on each individual case to determine the course of action. This article will give several examples to illustrate […] Read more

Very often in our practice we get called out, or a cow is brought in, with an unrelenting lameness that the producer has treated two or three times for footrot to no avail. The cow is often bearing almost no weight on its leg. This could be septic arthritis, and this article will describe the […] Read more

The best form of treatment for a beef herd is preventative medicine and that really is what herd health visits are all about. I will go over the basic things covered by most veterinarians and indicate how these fit into most schemes followed by cow-calf managers. The time frame revolves around a typical Alberta spring-calving […] Read more