Category: Livestock Management

Altosid® IGR Controls Horn Fly Population

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Altosid® IGR Controls Horn Fly Population

Promotes Greater Weight Gain in Stocker Cattle Study

Horn flies are a major concern to beef producers, costing the industry more than $1 billion annually. Left untreated, their painful bites can present a number of risks to cattle and interfere with cattle’s ability to maximize weight gain potential. However, a recent study confirmed that stocker cattle treated with Altosid® IGR, a feed-through horn fly control solution, experienced a 15.8% increase in average daily gains compared to cattle who went untreated.

Conducted in northeast Oklahoma in the summer of 2011, the study demonstrated that horn fly populations can be maintained below the economic threshold of 100 flies per side when cattle consistently consume the targeted level of mineral tubs treated with Altosid® IGR. The product was designed specifically to disrupt the horn fly life cycle, preventing larvae from maturing and emerging from the manure of treated cattle. This mode of control led to reductions in horn fly populations for cattle in the study treated with Altosid® IGR, promoting the increase in average daily gains.

Continue reading for a detailed summary of the study, including methods used and reported impacts on horn fly populations, mineral consumption data and weight gain.

This study was conducted to determine the efficacy of Altosid® IGR in mineral tubs for the control of horn flies (Haematobia irritans) on stocker cattle, and if the resulting control would impact cattle weight gain.

TRIAL METHODS

On the first day of the study (Day 0), individual weights were taken on 50, 6-weight animals and they were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups – 30 animals received Altosid® IGR in their feed while 20 were selected to serve as the control group. (The difference in group numbers was based solely on pasture size.) Once cattle had been divided into treatment groups, the appropriate mineral tubs were offered, free choice, to the cattle in each corresponding group. The mineral tubs were weighed weekly to determine consumption level, with that number divided by the number of days of access and the number of head in the pasture to establish an average daily mineral consumption per head.

Horn fly populations were monitored weekly by taking digital photographs of 15 randomly selected animals in each group, placing a grid overlay over the magnified images and counting the number of adult flies on one side of the animal. Animals were individually weighed on Day 33, Day 68 and at the end of the study on Day 86. All data analysis was conducted using the PROC GLM procedure and means were separated with an LSD test set at the 0.05 alpha level (SAS 9.4).

 

Conclusion

Results of the study help to validate many presumptions about horn flies and their effects on cattle. First, by using Altosid® IGR and getting appropriate consumption rates, producers should see a significant drop in horn fly populations. Second, by controlling horn flies with Altosid® IGR, animals could experience daily weight gains of as much as 15.8% (0.33 lbs.) greater than animals where no fly control solution is being deployed. Finally, the estimated weight gains from using Altosid® IGR can help producers achieve as much as a 6.5:1 return on their investment in the product.

Altosid® IGR is a feed-through horn fly control solution that moves through the digestive system and works in cattle manure where horn flies lay their eggs, to limit future horn fly populations. Unlike other feed-through products, Altosid® IGR is an insect growth regulator (IGR), and it is classified b y t he E PA a s a biorational. The (S)-methoprene in Altosid® IGR mimics naturally occurring insect biochemicals that are responsible for horn fly development, preventing larvae from developing into breeding, biting adult flies.

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Is Virtual Fencing Right For Your Ranch

Posted on by A.Miller-Cattle-Admin

Is Virtual Fencing Right For Your Ranch

Pros, cons and what to know before buying into virtual fencing as an alternative to traditional permanent ortemporary fencing.

Do barbed-wire fences and adaptive grazing work in harmony? With labor shortages along with the cost of cross-fencing with either permanent or electric fences, traditional fencing isn’t always an option, especially in big pastures.

Virtual fencing, while not the be-all and end-all, can be a solution. Essentially, virtual fencing is a system a rancher can use to program virtual barriers on a smartphone or computer to include or exclude certain areas of a pasture. Animals are fitted with collars that have GPS transceivers, tracking their location and generating sound cues and humane electrical impulses when animals come near the boundary.

Leo Barthelmess is an early adopter who tested such a system on the ranch he and his family run south of Malta, Montana, half on private land and half on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) leases. They run a commercial cow-calf outfit on 25,000acres in an ecosystem that he’s told is the largest intact grassland in the world.

The region is home to the second longest migration corridor in the country for wildlife, especially antelope, and is the summer home to around a dozen prairie bird species facing potential endangered species listings. “ a lot of conservation interest here,” he says, “and nobody wants more infrastructure out here.”

Technology to the Rescue

Barthelmess, through the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance (www.ranchstewards.org), received a grant to discover if virtual fencing is a viable alternative to traditional fencing. In November 2019, he collared a herd of dry, pregnant cows grazing winter pasture.

Turns out that virtual fencing was indeed a viable alternative, allowing him to change adaptive grazing paddocks virtually, protect riparian areas and use animal impact to help restore native forages.

Barthelmess’ ranch has 40 permanent-fence pastures on both private and BLM land, the largest of which is 4,000 acres. The ranch’s 40 sections have 60 permanent water sources most years. And access to water is what determines how cattle graze a pasture.

He and his crew subdivided the largest pastures based on water availability and used virtual fencing to move cattle.  His goal was to increase stock density by applying traditional pasture rotation with a more targeted, high density grazing program.

Higher density grazing means cattle are moved more frequently, and each grazed pasture unit has a longer rest period.

“We just move from water source to water source with the virtual fence,” he says. On BLM ground, he can keep cattle away from streams, riparian areas and other places the public likes to use. Much of the rangeland in northeast Montana was tilled during the homestead era and has since supported non-native plants such as crested wheatgrass. “We have been using virtual fencing to target those non-native grass areas within the big pastures,” Barthelmess says

Long term, it will help the land return to native grasses and forbs. In the meantime, “It’s allowed us to freshen up the nutrition and palatability of the grass, because we’re knocking a bunch of that decadent material down to the ground to feed the soil.”

Some Questions Remain

However, the technology is new enough that questions remain, says Robin White, associate professor and associate director of the Center for Advanced Innovation in Agriculture at Virginia Tech.“

These technologies typically rely on GPS collars on animals, and they work a lot like an electric dog fence,” she says. “Typically, there’s an audio stimulus when the animal comes close to a perimeter, and then there is an electric stimulus to encourage the animal to stay away from the barrier.”

The collars allow a beef producer to track the location of animals in near real time through web- and phone-based apps. “Of the things we don’t know is how often you can move the boundaries. Is the animal really responding to the visual or the auditory stimulus, or have they learned that that part of the field is where they get shocked and they don’t want to go over there?”

Virtual Herding

There are a lot of reasons that virtual fencing might make sense. Mike Williams has one very compelling reason. He leases a 12,000-acre ranch in the mountain’s northeast of Los Angeles. One of the lease stipulations is no cross fences. He herded his cattle when he first leased the ranch, keeping them in a bunch and moving them around every two or three days. While it worked, it was pretty much a full-time job, and Williams runs the ranch mostly by himself. “When you get sidetracked, the cows get spread out, and it’s a job getting them back together again. So, I saw virtual fences as a way of maybe reducing the amount of area I had to go to when I did put them back together,” he says.

“It’s been so successful that I don’t spend nearly as much time with herding as I do rely on the virtual fence. Although I still use herding when I want a specific herd impact in specific areas, more concentrated than what the virtual fence is really designed to do.” Beyond that, Williams says while cattle can be influenced by the virtual fence, they’re not necessarily confined by it. “Some cows learn how to beat it,” he says. “It’s not something you’d want to use next to a highway, for example.” In addition, battery life of the collars is something to keep in mind. However, he says the virtual fencing collars are effective in keeping track of the cattle in general.

“Just looking at the computer, you get an idea where they are at any given time, and you get an idea of the intensity that they’ve been in particular areas. I was surprised at some of the areas the cattle go to and some of the grazing patterns that the cattle were demonstrating.”

For More Information

If you’re interested in grants or other help to add virtual fencing, contact your preferred local conservationist, says Martin Townsend, Ranchers Stewardship Alliance conservation director. “NRCS is offering [cost-share] help through EQIP in most states.

National and state grazing land coalitions, conservation districts and other entities may be as well. “The challenge is that grants and similar support continue to change, according to Allison Burenheide with Vence, Merck Animal Health’s virtual fencing system. “We’ve seen great success working with BLM, Forest Service and conservation organizations such as Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever and Sage Grouse Conservation,” she says.

Things to consider about virtual fencing:
  • Available funding within your area.
  • Needs within your area: post-burn grazing, wildlife migration/protection, invasive grass species, conservation focus, etc.
  • Be prepared for what you’ll need for grants — most likely a grazing plan showing that you work with your range conservationist.
  • Knowledge of topography and cell signal availability, which can impact effectiveness.
May 2026

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Pros and Cons of Vaccinating Newborn Calves

Posted on by A.Miller-Cattle-Admin

Calf Vaccination Protocols – Pros and Cons of Vaccinating Newborn Calves

A good vaccination program is important for calves, but the age to start is controversial, and there is also the question of which products to use. Stockmen generally vaccinate their calves, but the vaccines chosen and the timing may vary depending on the situation—such as calving season and the environment for young calves, and plans for selling them.

Sometimes the vaccination program is different for calves that are sold right off the cow (and processed/vaccinated when they arrive at the feedyard), than for calves that are “preconditioned” and kept awhile after weaning, to have them past the stress of weaning and healthy for the next owner, or for calves that are kept over winter as replacement heifers or to run on grass next year before selling them.

Dr. Chris Chase, Professor Emeritus, Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, South Dakota State University, says most people vaccinate calves at branding time, but a few producers vaccinate newborn calves (within the first 24 to 48 hours of birth), for various reasons.

“In young calves, less than 3 or 4 weeks of age, all the pieces for building immunity in response to vaccination are there, but generally just don’t work very well yet. We have to keep that in mind. In the young calf the cells that make antibody B cells are really low at birth so waiting until three to four weeks of age for bacterial pneumonia vaccines is best. Their response to things like bacterins are not super great, but work best if the calf is not stressed or dehydrated,” he says. Calves always get off to a better start with adequate colostrum, clean environment, not stressed by being chilled, etc. They need the energy from colostrum and need to be hydrated to get everything going. Trying to give vaccine to a cold calf doesn’t work.

“Many one or two-day old calves respond pretty well to intranasal viral respiratory vaccines, unless the calves are dehydrated. If you have a calf that’s cold and compromised, it won’t work as well. Otherwise the intranasal vaccines do a pretty good job, compared to giving oral scour vaccines. Colostrum is a key protectant against E. coli, rotavirus and corona virus,” he says.

The Colostrum is crucial, as soon as possible, not only for the energy it provides and the antibodies. “Colostrum helps get the microbiome going in the gut. Oligosaccharides (carbohydrate chains that improve gut health, boost immunity, and enhance mineral absorption) increase the diversity of the bugs the calves pick up when they come through the birth canal and hit the ground, and help encourage the right ones. Colostrum helps the calf in many ways, particularly with gut health as well as antibodies against disease.” Protection can be enhanced by vaccinating the cow prior to calving, so she builds antibodies that will be in her colostrum, to fight pathogenic viruses and bacteria.

Cryptosporidiosis is a different story. “There’s research by some companies, working on something they can give to young calves, but nothing yet that is available commercially. Young calves can start making IgA antibodies by the time they are 2 to 3 weeks old, and usually crypto is something that occurs a little bit later than the scours due to E. coli, rota or coronavirus.” It takes about 3 weeks’ incubation before a calf can break with cryptosporidiosis, so unless the calf gets a big dose of these parasites right after birth (like getting a mouthful of mud and manure being born in a sloppy wet pen), a calf generally won’t develop crypto until a month or more of age. This is similar to when a calf might show signs of coccidiosis, which is another protozoan disease that takes at least 3 weeks to develop.

“There is an intranasal vaccine for coronavirus, but if the producer has done a good job of vaccinating the cow herd for scours, there’s no need for this intranasal vaccine in the calves. Another thing, even though it’s not on the label for protection against respiratory coronavirus, the intranasal vaccine can help prevent that. This could be a problem if the calves are still on the cow, and I wouldn’t give it to calves unless you have a positive diagnosis for it. Coronavirus is ubiquitous but it’s a weird virus; it can affect both the respiratory tract and the GI tract,” says Chase.

“The biggest problem when giving an oral scour vaccine is that the antibodies in colostrum can neutralize those antigens. If you give an oral scour vaccine within the first 4 or 5 days after birth, that’s probably ok, but the problem is that by the time it kicks in the calf will be 2 or 3 weeks old and you missed the window of time in which you need to protect those calves,” he says.

If coronavirus diarrhea hits your calves at 3 weeks of age, maybe giving the vaccine during the first week of age might make sense, but if it hits them at 2 weeks of age it probably won’t help prevent it.

“One thing that does seem to work really well is giving clostridial toxoids to calves at 4 or 5 days of age (or even younger). They seem to respond to those even if they’ve had good colostrum. The toxoids are a smaller molecule, rather than the whole bacterium.” The toxoid act against the toxins produced by the clostridial bacteria rather than the bacterial antigens themselves and is more effective against preventing the damaging effects of the bacterial toxins that cause acute disease and death of the calf. In some herds, calves need this protection early, if they experience “enterotoxemia” in the first weeks of life, in contrast to the calves that develop this disease a bit later.

This can make a difference in terms of whether it’s most important to vaccinate the cows ahead of calving (to provide protection via colostrum) or to vaccinate the calves at birth. The toxoids usually provide good protection, regardless of when the calves receive it. “Calves respond to tetanus toxoid very well at a young age, and the same with Clostridium perfringens type C & D, since this vaccine is a toxoid. It’s a simpler molecule, with more carbohydrate and less protein. It seems to trick the immune system into responding earlier. By contrast, protein-based antigens take the immune system a bit more work to respond. With the simpler molecule, young calves seem to be able to respond better.” Toxoids, in general, seem to work better than other vaccines for stimulating good immunity in very young calves.

The age at which calves in your herd experience enterotoxemia can make a difference in how you protect them with vaccination—whether they need antibodies in colostrum for fast temporary immunity (and you vaccinate the cows ahead of calving), or whether they die of acute disease at 2 to 4 months of age after that temporary immunity is gone. You should work with your veterinarian to figure this out, and to know which vaccine to use, and when.

“Giving Pasteurella or Histophilus vaccines to 2-week-old calves is asking for trouble. Their immune systems are too immature. The pieces are there but don’t work very well yet, and if you give them those big gram-negative antigens that early they can’t handle it. This can really hammer them—especially if you give it at less than 3 or 4 weeks of age—they can’t respond very well and it may have an adverse effect,” he says.

“Giving calves anything with modified live BVD in it before they are 30 to 45 days of age is also questionable. It’s better to wait until branding age, rather than too soon after birth,” says Chase.

Some producers give all kinds of vaccines, maybe more than they need. The person who gave advice on what you should use may be long gone and you might need to find out if this is something you should still be doing. Vaccines change, and your calves’ environment and your management situation may have changed. Always consult with your veterinarian when developing vaccine protocols.

“You need to be critical of your vaccine protocol, and current in what you need to do. Maybe you had a problem 40 years ago, but is it still a problem now? If you are now using the Sandhills method of calving management, moving the calving cows to clean ground every week or so, this may change things completely,” he says. Some scours problems may not be as significant now, if your calves don’t have the same exposure or amount of exposure to those pathogens.

Weather can also make a difference; a cold, wet spring can be more stressful for newborn or young calves, making them more vulnerable to disease. Wet, muddy ground can also harbor more pathogens.

Advice From a Pathologist

Here are some thoughts on those topics from Dr. Donal O’Toole, who was head of the Department of Veterinary Services at the University of Wyoming for many years, director of the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory and past president of the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians.

It’s not easy to decide which vaccines are best when vaccinating calves; there are many different products. For IBR alone, there are at least 40 modified-life virus (MLV) and 17 killed products to choose from. There are also products that include BVD virus and other viral agents, and some bacterial vaccines.

O’Toole’s preference, at least for viral agents, is to use modified-live vaccines— provided they are safe to use in a particular situation. For instance, you would not give nursing age calves MLV vaccines if their dams have not been previously vaccinated (and don’t have adequate immunity), or the cows might pick the virus from the calves and abort their current pregnancy.

“If you give a vaccine by a natural route, such as an intranasal vaccine for respiratory viruses, the modified-live product has advantages,” said O’Toole. “With killed products, the amount of antigen an animal receives is basically just what is in the syringe. By contrast, when using an attenuated modified-live vaccine the antigen will expand in the animal since the attenuated virus can replicate. It can also move to some of that agent’s target sites, such as the lungs. It essentially gives animals a mild, generally subclinical infection,” he said.

“Another advantage, especially when using intranasal viral respiratory agents, is that it by-passes the effect of maternal antibodies,” said O’Toole. In young calves, many vaccines do not stimulate a strong immune response because calves still have passive immunity from the dam (antibodies in colostrum). Those antibodies in the calf neutralize most or all of the vaccine antigens, so the calf’s immune responses are minimal.

Most vaccines are ineffective in calves until antibodies from colostrum (passive transfer) wanes, but the intranasal modified-live vaccines can be given at a younger age, even in the first day of life, with good results. “It was surprising to see how long it took for vaccine companies to recognize this. Dr. John Ellis, who once worked in the Wyoming diagnostic lab, couldn’t persuade companies to determine whether intranasal vaccination works in very young calves, so he did studies on his own and published them. He demonstrated that at least for BRSV—bovine respiratory syncytial virus–this route of challenge works well,” said O’Toole.

If a certain ranch experiences a lot respiratory disease in young calves, this would be the best option, to try to prevent problems. “I make this recommendation not as a clinician, but as a pathologist who mostly sees the wrecks. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the good outcomes.” He saw what happens when things go wrong and dead calves come in to the lab for necropsy.

“When using modified-live vaccines, the only ones I have concerns about are the IBR products against bovine herpes virus 1 (when given to pregnant cattle) because of sporadic abortions caused by the vaccine virus.” Killed vaccines are safer, but they need more booster shots to be fully protective.

Vaccinations given to calves during the first months of life often serve as a priming vaccine. Vaccinations given at weaning then act as a booster to further stimulate the immune system to ensure adequate protection.

“Pneumonia is common in young calves. The key respiratory diseases are due to viral agents. These are BRSV, PI-3, IBR (bovine herpes virus 1) and BVDV. Some producers vaccinate calves against these. There is variability among producers whether they also use bacterins for bacterial agents such as Mannheimia and Pasteurella multocida. Personally I think people should vaccinate for those as well as viral agents, since bacterial agents complicate most cases of calf pneumonia. Generally, it is the bacterial agents that are the actual cause of death,” says O’Toole. Viral disease lowers the calf’s immune defenses in the lungs and opens the way for opportunistic bacteria.

Most modified-live vaccines against respiratory agents are for viruses, but there are a few modified-live bacterial vaccines. Your veterinarian can guide you on these choices, and whether to use the killed or modified-live products.

Calf scours are a recurrent challenge in many operations. For some of these agents the cows can receive vaccinations toward the end of pregnancy, rather than trying to vaccinate calves shortly after birth. “We see rotavirus and coronavirus scours as early as the first days of life, either with or without E coli. That’s why it makes most sense to vaccinate the cows. There have been some E. coli vaccines a person can give to calves at birth, but the E. coli scours we see tend to occur shortly after birth. It takes at least a week for immunity from a vaccine to kick in. You may not get sufficient immunity quickly enough by vaccinating calves as they hit the ground,” O’Toole said.

Selecting a “best” vaccine is difficult because so many products are available. “Veterinarians can advise you, but their experience varies. They will differ in the advice they give to clients. If a veterinarian has a wreck with a certain product, especially if it happens more than once, he or she generally is leery of using that product again. I taught a course to upper division animal science and pre-veterinary students and they often asked which products to use. They wanted me to tell them which vaccines are the most reliable products on the market, but given the large number of licensed products for individual agents, it’s not that simple,” said O’Toole.

“There is no way I can recommend a specific product. I defer to the experience of local veterinarians. Each veterinarian tries to keep up with what is going on with vaccine products and use his or her best judgment. It would be easier if we only had to choose between only 5 or 10 products, using different strains of the pathogens, and formulations. That’s not the case. It’s hard for producers to make these choices.”

Sidebar: Study Comparing Vaccine Protocols for Young Calves

Chase did a study a few years ago looking at vaccinating calves at about 30 days of age, giving a single dose of a combination injectable viral-Mannheimia vaccine, and comparing the use of an intranasal vaccine for IBR-PI3 and BRSV and a concurrent injectable Mannheimia/BVD vaccine. “Unless you have some very early pneumonia issues in baby calves, vaccinating a beef calf before 30 to 40 days of age is generally not a good idea. The exception is if you can give an intranasal vaccine,” he says.

“There are some questions about maternal antibodies interfering with a calf’s ability to build immunity. If it’s a well-adjuvanted injected vaccine, calves will actually have a pretty good memory response. In our study, we found that for BVD, the calves developed their own antibodies from the injectable vaccine even though they had maternal BVD antibodies. We followed them for 5 months after we vaccinated them and could see that their antibody titers didn’t decline; they actually went up,” he says.

It depends on which vaccine you use, but a young calf’s immune system is immature and if they have good antibody transfer from the dam, they may not respond very well to a vaccine. “There are T-cells and B-cells present; they just don’t work that great, early on. An intranasal vaccine can help with that, but unless a rancher is having a problem with summer pneumonia, I would rather wait until the immune system is a little more mature.” It’s better to vaccinate a calf when it’s about 2-plus months old rather than just 2 weeks old.

“It’s best if they can be at least 45 days of age. We can get away with doing it at 30 days, but not 21 days. If calves are under 30 days of age, their immature immune system still has a ways to go. In a perfect world, vaccinations starting at 45 days would be good.” Beginning preconditioning programs while they are still on the cow is a good way to start them.

May 2026
By Heather Smith Thomas

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