Many useful pharmaceutical products have been developed to treat BRD; however, effective implementation of a preventive strategy has been elusive. A further complication is the absence of an experimental model that replicates the most common clinical symptoms.

It’s commonly known in the cattle industry that BRD is the most costly illness affecting cattle in North America. Despite extensive research and treatment efforts over the years, it continues to lead to high rates of sickness and death among cattle.

A new era of calf prices begs the question: What’s one more worth? An extra weaned calf can be a result of improved reproductive success in conjunction with reducing morbidity and death loss.

Successfully weaning and starting calves on feed can be a rewarding time of year for producers and sets the calf up for future performance. However, the most common time for a calf to contract BRD is within the first four weeks postweaning.

If cows could just tell us when they get an upset tummy, maybe we could help them get through the episode without a hitch. Before we can discuss rumen dysfunction, we need to understand what normal rumen function looks like.