I feel very strongly about this—that next fall you will see a huge difference in the price of calves that have not had two rounds of shots and the ones that have. Blackleg is a nice shot, but it is the least of my worries.
Every large cattle operator that I have talked to has had a lot of health problems starting calves this fall with most having huge death loss with a lot of cronies left. One man told me last running week he lost five calves still running on his cows and he probably runs 70 cows. I told him I probably have too and don’t know it as several of my pastures have sagebrush and areas that are hard to find a sick calf unless he happens to end up at the tank.
One cattleman told me he thought they were coming up with an implant or vaccine slow release that would give them a second and third round without running them through the chute again. I hope so. He also said he thought a lot of cows that are having calves now were giving an antibiotic as a calf so that some antibiotic isn’t working well now on them as that strain is immune to it.
Most cattlemen have said in years past that by next year cattlemen will have forgotten the health trouble they had the year before.
I don’t think so this next year as for most it’s been a bloodbath and I don’t like the taste of blood. One man that starts a lot of calves and feeder cattle didn’t agree with the philosophy that if a cow had Draxin or another antibiotic as a calf the offspring of that vaccinated female could be resistant.
All of us as cattlemen often develop an opinion from the last disaster, and sometimes that’s right and sometimes we could do the same exact thing next year with different results.
One young boy said, “Mom why do you want us to be close to God?” She said, “Because you are the only thing that I can take to heaven with me.”
A friend of mine said a guy holding a sign that said, “I’m hungry.” But he was also holding a $700 iPhone. My friend rolled down the window and said, “Why don’t you turn the phone over and eat the apple off the back?”
Editor’s note: The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not represent the view of High Plains Journal. Jerry Nine, Woodward, Oklahoma, is a lifetime cattleman who grew up on his family’s ranch near Slapout, Oklahoma.
