The national animal health monitoring system in Colorado beef herds: Disease rates and their associated costs

Abstract

Forty cow-calf operations were selected randomly from Colorado herds during Round 2 (October 1986–September 1987) of the National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS). The monthly NAHMS data on disease prevention, incidence, and associated costs were collected from 39 of the 40 herds. A subset of 14 herds was included in a subsampling study to validate the accuracy of the disease events reported by the livestock producers. There were 12 673 cows in these herds on 31 May 1987. The size of the herds ranged from 15 to 3259 cows with a mean herd size of 325±529 cows. Diseases were categorized into five classes: (1) reproductive; (2) respiratory; (3) enteric; (4) sudden death/clostridial diseases; (5) miscellaneous. The annual cost of the disease preventive measures in these cow-calf herds was $6.39 per cow, which included the cost of vaccines and drugs ($5.11 per cow) and the cost of veterinary service ($1.28 per cow). Additionally, 0.32 h of labor was spent, on a per-cow basis, on activities related to disease prevention. A total of 4180 disease incidents were reported in the 39 beef cow-calf herds. The annual cumulative disease incidence rates were highest for the miscellaneous (10.3%) and enteric (9.7%) disease classes and lowest for the sudden death/clostridial diseases class (1.6%). The total annual number of disease cases in these herds was 33 per 100 cows at risk. The total annual mean cost associated with the occurrence of diseases in these herds was $20.56 per cow. The serologic results indicated that nearly all herds had been exposed to bluetongue and/or epizootic hemorrhagic disease. However, there were no confirmed clinical cases of bluetongue during the observation period. There were no herds that had animals with positive titers to any serotype of leptospirosis. Biological samples were submitted from 31 cases for diagnostic testing. Confirmed diagnostic results were obtained on only three of the 31 cases.