Planning livestock health management for winter

---

​The top asked question at this time of the year is, and I quote, “what vaccines should be using this winter”. Unfortunately there is no one size fits all answer to this for a number of reasons such as product preferences; you prefer product A but your neighbour has been using product B. Other factors are specific disease and parasite challenges on your farm and in your local area, veld condition & type and even animal productivity targets especially with respect to pregnant animals. However, if you do your homework thoroughly you can formulate a good winter animal health management plan.

Animal health management in winter is not so different from animal health management in summer with the exception of nutrition management. What you would do in summer you would also do in winter just at different intervals and potentially using different product types especially for parasite control.
An example of this is that you might be using a spray once a week to control ticks in summer however in winter to control ticks you can use an injectable product every few weeks. You are still controlling ticks and external parasites just at different intervals and with different products types.

When formulating your plan a few questions you need to ask yourself:

• What disease challenges have I experienced in previous winter seasons?
• Was I able to treat these disease conditions?
• Have these disease conditions resulted in significant losses?
• Do my animals frequently have skin issues such as patchy hair loss or itchy skin?
• Is there significant weight loss in my animals during this period?

 
Before we go ahead, just a reminder, a vaccine is a product you use to PREVENT one or more specific diseases. An antibiotic is a product used to TREAT diseases in animals that are sick. Some diseases can be easily treated with an antibiotic, other diseases that cannot be treated and can result in significant losses will need to be vaccinated against.

Back on topic
What disease challenges have I experience in previous winters? Was I able to treat these diseases? Have they resulted in significant losses?
One of the top complaints in winter is pneumonia. Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs with signs such as coughing, respiratory distress and mortalities in some cases. A few mortalities from pneumonia during winter are to be expected and in some cases if identified early enough you can treat with an antibiotic.
If you experience a few cases of pneumonia and have been able to treat animals in the past then in this case you would just need to make sure you at least have an antibiotic available to treat a case if it arises.
If you however experience a significant number of mortalities you might need to consider using a vaccine that is indicated for providing protection from pneumonia causing pathogens. In such cases prevention is probably more beneficial.
There are other conditions that maybe prevalent in winter, you are the one who knows your farm better than anyone, do your homework then ask yourself, am I better off treating cases as they arise? or should I rather vaccinate the whole herd / flock?
 
Do my animals frequently have skin issues during the winter months?
Other common issues that happen in winter, relating to external parasites such as mites, lice and ticks are skin issues. These issues can manifest as itchy skin or patchy hair loss. If this is an issue you commonly encounter you will need to also have a plan for controlling external parasites. External parasite control is often overlooked during the winter months because tick activity slows down and you may not see many ticks on your livestock however, mites and lice which cause the aforementioned issues are most active during this period.
Injectable or pour on external parasite remedies are typically appropriate for controlling these parasites during the winter months because using sprays or plunge dipping during cold weather may result in animals developing hypothermia since they cannot dry off fast enough. Injectables and pour ons generally have a longer residual effect so the frequency or intervals between applying these products will be relatively longer compared to sprays and plunge dipping however, you need to refer to the package insert for exact intervals and also take into consideration the parasite challenge in your area when deciding what the appropriate interval will be in your animals.
If you experience issues with tickborne diseases as well, you will need to also account for this when drafting your external parasite control programme.
 
Is there significant weight loss in my animals during this period?
Winter is often associated with weight loss across the entire herd / flock. The main issue is nutritional however other issues will also contribute to this, such as internal parasites and vitamin and mineral deficiencies (which is still nutrition). In addition to supplement feeding, you should also at least deworm your livestock once. If you are using injectable external parasite control products then chances are they also deworm your livestock however if using pour ons then most likely you might need to buy a separate dewormer. Some pour ons like Maximus can also deworm livestock, you will need to check the package insert for product details.
Vitamins and minerals are important for facilitating and improving efficiency of processes related to metabolism as well as feed conversion which is important during periods of limited feed availability. During the winter months, due to poor grazing availability or poor-quality grazing or both, animals do not receive enough of these important nutrients.
If you are reliant on grazing or hay supplements alone without using winter licks then injectable or oral vitamin & mineral supplements may be required to meet address deficiencies.
Winter licks on the other hand may contain added vitamins and minerals in which case you might not necessarily require separate supplements unless if certain nutrients are missing from the lick. You would need to also look at the label of the winter lick to see what minerals it contain so you can decide whether to use an additional supplement or not.
 
We hope this was useful to you!
 
We will discuss winter feeding soon as nutrition so keep a look out for that post.
 
If you found this post useful please share it so that other farmers can also benefit from this.

Author

My name is Dr Kombo, I am a vet at Comvet Animal Health and I am passionate about finding ways to educate and improve the skills of livestock farmers especially new and emerging farmers.