Find Persistent BVD Infections in Your Heifers Early!

Craig Jones DVM, Ozark, MO

   Technical Services Veterinarian

Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc.

1-800-247-7760-8709

cjones@bi-vetmedica.com

 

Bovine Virus Diarrhea disease potentially can be very costly to a dairy.  One key to controlling BVD is to keep BVD “PI” calves (persistently infected from birth with BVD virus) from being born and continuing to infect all cattle they come in contact with.  Another key is to find those heifers that are persistently infected with BVD and cull them quickly.  When you bring heifers on your farm you potentially have some that are “PI” and therefore are shedding virus to the rest of the heifers.  When they shed BVD virus to heifers during the first third of gestation they can cause other “PI” fetuses to develop or other problems such as abortions or abnormally formed calves.  To help break this cycle of BVD infection there is available a simple ear notch test you can use on all incoming heifers.  This test can help you find those “PI” heifers and cull them quickly, so they will not be a continued source of BVD infection in your heifers and also to the future dairy herds they will eventually go to.

Your local veterinarian can help set up the ear notch test.  The skin sample is preserved in buffered formalin and sent to a diagnostic lab to determine if the BVD virus is located in the skin cells.  This indicates a BVD persistent infection and not just transient BVD infection.  If those heifers are culled upon arrival it will decrease the amount of treatment that would have been required for them as well as their pen mates for general sickness problems.  In addition, they will not be a source of virus to the others during gestation.

To help prevent heifers from being infected with BVD during gestation, an approved MLV BVD type 1 and 2 vaccine approved to help prevent persistent infection in the fetus should be used.  Testing on arrival, proper vaccination and biosecurity are three key ways to help keep BVD out of heifers and decrease losses due to BVD and increase the overall value of heifers to the dairyman.

 

Pictures of ear notching and necessary equipment are shown the reverse side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Management tips have been sponsored at the 2003 Dairy Calf and Heifer Conference by: .  Special thanks to Dr. Wayne Cole, Dr. Phil Widel and Dr. Craig Jones for their support

 

Assistance in promoting the Management tips by Tom Quaife and Stan Erwine of Dairy Herd Management is gratefully acknowledged.

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