The Casual Cattle Conversations Podcast: BRD Prevention and Treatement for Ranchers and Feeders

BRD Prevention and Treatement for Ranchers and Feeders

BRD impacts multiple segments of the beef industry, but prevention and management starts at the ranch level. “Whether you sell your calves after weaning or you maintain ownership, someone has to deal with those calves later on,” shares Paige Schmidt-Rios, DVM. Rios comes from a cow-calf and backgrounding operation in North Dakota but currently works independently with various feedlots and backgrounding yards in Kansas.

What is BRD?

An understanding of what BRD truly is matters when determining the best treatment and prevention protocols for ranches. BRD stands for bovine respiratory disease.

“That term can change, whether you're in a different sector or you're in a different region of the country,” says Rios. “Some people will just call it straight pneumonia or shipping fever is another term used for BRD.”

BRD can be caused by eight or nine different pathogens either bacteria or viruses that live in the upper respiratory tract of most animals. Stressful events and environmental factors are often the catalyst that cause these pathogens to take over.

She explains, “That compromise can be traveling across the country, traveling to the next pasture, weaning, working those cattle, processing them, causing stress, or environmental factors like heat, mud or blizzards.”

BRD impacts calves of all ages, but weaning is a common event that brings on BRD in herds across the country.

“About 75% of the disease we see in calves post weaning is due to some sort of pneumonia, and that can be maintained throughout a stalker operation, a background operation, or a feedlot,” shares Rios.

BRD Treatment

Knowing the basics of BRD plays an impactful role in treating the disease fast and effectively.

Rios says, “Where viruses become important is they compromise the immune system and allow those commensal bacteria to set into the lungs and to actually cause a bacterial infection, which is pneumonia.”

While there are five classes of antibiotics available for use, options are limited. When possible, Rios recommends testing affected animals to narrow down the best possible treatment.....



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