The Moos Room™

[music]
[cow moos]
Dr. Joe Armstrong: What is up, everybody? This is Dr. Joe Armstrong, and welcome to The Moos Room. This episode is very different than normal, and it's probably going to be happening a little more than it has in the past. We got the okay to travel again, and so I'm in my car, got a lot of windshield time, and I figured we'd try something new. The worst thing about this episode is that there is no Bradley. No Dr. Bradley J. Hines, tenured professor, no, Emily Krekelberg.
With that, you got to keep in mind that today is just windshield-driving thoughts with Dr. Joe, and there's no one here to check me on my BS and to make fun of me and keep me in line. Take that with a grain of salt after we get going today and you hear what I'm talking about. I'm driving home from the 2021 Minnesota Cattleman Summer Tour held by the Rock Nobles Cattlemen's Association.
It was a wonderful experience. Had a great time, met a lot of great people, and most importantly, I did it all in person, which was wonderful. Loved being able to shake everybody's hand, met a bunch of people that I had only met over Zoom or over a phone, and got to see them in person. It's just wonderful to be back out, be talking to everybody again.
Full disclosure, the topic today comes from Landcorp rep, Maverick. Shout out to Maverick. He's been a great resource for me when it comes to products in the industry, and just making sure that I stay connected to what's going on in the real world. I have to give some credit, of course, to Sabina Panici, one of the vet students that used to ride with me when I was in practice. I'd hear about it if I left her out, so I better give her a mention as well.
This is really just a time for me to-- I'm different. I'm totally different than a lot of people. Maybe I'm not, I don't know. You let me know. Email The Moos Room at umn.edu. I'm one of those strange people, and I think I'm strange. I get on these long drives and get on this windshield time. I'll ride in complete silence and let my mind go and be alone with my thoughts, which can be dangerous sometimes, for sure. It's where I think about things and I think about the industry, the dairy, the beef industry, cattle in general, try to collect my thoughts on things.
I come up with all these different things and I am reminded while I'm thinking of some of the things I did in the past, whether they were right or wrong, and some of the stories connected to them. Let's stop beating around the bush and actually get to the point of this episode. The point is to talk about implants and something very specific to implants. Again, credit to Maverick and Sabina for getting on my case about this and making me want to talk about it.
When I first started in practice and before practice, this is not something I thought about. It probably has to do with how I was taught and how I was trained before vet school a little bit and how to put implants in. The emphasis when we were at shoot side was always, let's just get this done and get it done fast. There was considerations for BQA and where you shot placement and things like that, but there was very little attention paid to how that implant went in that cow's ear.
I'll fully admit, and this is the short part of the story time here, is that there was a long period, especially before vet school, probably also a little bit in practice where either myself or the crew I was in charge of did not put implants in correctly. Most of what I'm talking about is just putting in implants with a nice, clean, sharp needle into that ear. Like I said, the emphasis has always been about time. How much time does it take to do everything in this shoot and how can I make that less?
Part of that was just putting that implant in as fast as you could without cleaning that needle in between calves and without paying a whole lot of attention to whatever was on the ear of those calves as well. That results in not the greatest situation. I'll fully admit, I wasn't the best at this when I started in practice, and I wasn't as good as I should have been about, the crew that worked for me, getting on their case for doing this right.
Here's the problem. If you don't put in that implant with a clean, sharp needle into a clean, dry ear, you end up with a lot of abscesses. That abscess prevents the implant from doing its job. The question becomes, if you're going to have an abscess there, why did you put the implant in in the first place? Because you're not getting your money's worth out of that implant and sometimes those abscesses are bad enough that you could have probably just pushed that implant right onto the ground and had the same effect.
Now, here's where Maverick comes in, here's where Sabina comes in. They're going around to some of these feedlots and doing assessments on the implants after they've been put in to see how many abscesses there are out there in these feedlots. How are these implants working? Are they actually doing their job? Well, it turns out that there's some feedlots that do a great job, and there's a lot of feedlots that don't. I'm sad to admit there's a lot of veterinarians that also don't do this correctly. I was one of them at one point, and I certainly got better as I got later in my career in practice, but initially, I was just as bad as anyone out there.
Just from conversations, what they're finding is that anywhere from 60% to 80% of the ears are abscessed in some of these cattle where things aren't going as well as they should be on the implant game. That's not a good number. That's not a good number. That means in 60% to 80% of cattle in those feedlots where that's the situation, that implant is doing next to nothing. It's not working for you like it should. It should be one of the best return on investments that you can make and the best decision you can make for that calf in your system, but if you put it in wrong, you've negated that effect.
The purpose of today is to say and fully admit that I did not do a good enough job of this when I was in practice and I should have been better, but I'm telling you now, please be better about it as well, because a lot of the times that you may not see the implants work like they should, it might be because of how they got put in.
Really encourage your veterinarian, if they're the ones putting it in and their crew is running the job, make sure they're cleaning that needle. Make sure that needle's sharp. Make sure they're paying attention to how clean those cattle's ears are, and they're putting these implants in right. Because it could be preventing you from making money and it should be one of the easiest return on investments that you make.
How do you do that? There's all sorts of different tools and ways to do it. There's all sorts of paint trays that have been set up with a sponge so that you can soak it with chlorhexidine or some other disinfectant in between calves, and that's probably the easiest way to do it. Take a paint tray, fill the bottom of it with whatever disinfectant you want to use. Cut a sponge with a slit in it so that you can drop your needle into that sponge that has a disinfectant on it each time. I like to keep a towel with me as well to make sure I can clean ears if I need to with alcohol. All sorts of different ways to do it.
The point is, you need a sharp, clean needle when that implant goes in or it's not doing the work that it should for you. Just something to think about today. Nice short episode. Thank you, Maverick. Thank you, Sabina, for being on my case. Do it right. Make sure you get your money's worth. Be an advocate for this so that whoever's doing it for you also does it right. Explain to them why it matters. Avoid those abscesses in ears. If you have comments, questions, scathing rebuttals to this episode, please send them to themoosroom@umn.edu. That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M @umn.edu. Catch us on Twitter @UMNmoosroom and @UMNFarmSafety. Thanks for listening. Catch you guys next week.
[cow moos]
[music]
[00:08:39] [END OF AUDIO]

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