Views from a Veterinarian - Interview with Dr. Erika Nagorske

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Erika Nagorske of Southwest Veterinary Services. Dr. Nagorske completed her schooling at the University of Minnesota, and has been in practice now for 5 years. Southwest Veterinary Services is a large animal only practice assisting dairy cattle, beef cattle, feedlot cattle, swine, and poultry in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Iowa. Dr. Nagorske’s passion is cattle 500 lbs. (227 kg) and less!

When Dr. Nagorske is not at work she enjoys helping her in-laws on their cow calf seedstock operation, fishing, gardening, and hunting. She and her husband welcomed their first child last fall, and family time is very important at this time.

Dr. Nagorske was kind enough to share some thoughts with us on a few calf raising topics. The following are her responses.

In what ways do you work with producers to train and educate on the identification of disease?

Personally, I am proactive instead of reactive. I recommend prevention through vaccine, and nutrition, as it’s better for the bottom line. 

Calf scours and respiratory disease are the biggest challenges. I work on training producers to notice signs like fever, snotty nose, etc. We walk calves together, point them out, and discuss. It is so important to focus on nutrition and gut health, working to set the calf up with a good digestive system, so they can be healthy and productive.

What signs do you want producers to identify to help diagnosis disease?

With scours, sometimes you can have a hint and see what’s going on, but it can be hard to visually identify exactly which pathogen you are dealing with. Sudden death or bad scours at 1-2 days of age could be E. Coli or Salmonella. Rotavirus and Coronavirus infection is usually around 2-10 days of age. Calves older than 10 days of age are more common to be cryptosporidium infections. 

With some pathogens you will see blood, others it’s hit and miss depending on what is going on with the intestinal lining. Producers need to assess hydration status of the calf, and whether or not the calf needs antibiotics or not by taking a rectal temperature. Antibiotics will become more and more regulated in the future. We need to appropriately use them, and utilize other products like Surveillance to help gut health. 

Often electrolytes and Surveillance can get them through the scour period. This saves money and prevents unfavorable changes of microflora. Antibiotics are a wonderful tool, be mindful and use them appropriately for the best return on investment. 

What pathogens do you see most commonly causing illness on the farms you work with?

Hands down, post-weaning respiratory disease. Over the past 20-30 years NAHMS data show incidence of respiratory disease hasn’t changed much at all.  We are still at approximately a 20% infection rate for respiratory disease. Look at how many good antibiotics we have and not to mention vaccine technology that has improved so much as an industry. We still can’t get our finger on post-weaning respiratory rates. I have found that more often than not, we have better results improving nutrition and gut health, over any vaccine or antibiotic that I could ever recommend.

If someone could figure out a drug or vaccine to wipe out respiratory disease, then they would be on an island somewhere! Honestly, we really need to focus on gut health and gut immunology. There is so much involved in how it effects inflammation, and immune health. It really affects what we see post weaning, mostly because often the gut isn’t ready for what we are asking the calf to do.  At Southwest Veterinary Services we are a team of vets that won’t give up, and we have learned so much about nutrition and setting the calf up for success.

What are the best steps for disease prevention in calves?

#1 Colostrum, I can’t be a University of Minnesota grad without saying that! Dr. Godden might beat me up! But really, we need to be mindful that our colostrum is clean, that we get it to the calf quickly, and that it is high quality.

#2 Cleanliness and management of the environment. Keep housing areas clean and dry.  Be mindful of shared housing situations and how to manage challenges.

#3 Nutrition! Follow a customized nutrition program that will allow you to meet your goals. Consider additives for gut health such as MOS, bacillus, yucca, antibodies, etc. Surveillance has this all in one package. 

#4 Starter intake. Offer starter and water early on to encourage intake. Some may argue that only 30-40% of calves will drink water in the first few weeks.  But, if you think about it, that’s almost half of your calves that will get earlier intakes and better rumen development. That will help you overall, and also encourage intake as calves are grouped.

Choose a starter feed that is palatable and well balanced nutritionally. This will ensure that the calf will be provided with everything needed for growth and rumen development. 

THANK YOU

We really appreciate Dr. Nagorske taking some time out of her busy schedule to share some calf raising insight with us! If you would like to hear more from Dr.Nagorske, follow her on Instagram!

Written by: Mariah Gull, M.S.