Management of Bovine Respiratory Disease in Dairy Calves
Summary
Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) remains the principal health challenge in pre‐weaned dairy calves, combining viral and bacterial agents with environmental and management stressors to precipitate illness. Effective control requires a multifaceted approach centred on prevention, early detection and targeted intervention. Prevention begins with optimising passive immune transfer through timely ingestion of high‐quality colostrum to establish systemic antibodies. Housing and husbandry must minimise exposure to pathogens and stress by ensuring adequate ventilation, hygiene, stocking density and nutritional support. Strategic vaccination programmes against key viral pathogens complement biosecurity measures, while careful grouping and handling reduce social and transport stress. When disease occurs, judicious use of antimicrobials—guided by validated clinical scoring systems or point‐of‐care diagnostics—enables early therapeutic action while supporting antimicrobial stewardship. Emerging insights into host–microbiome interactions and omics‐based biomarkers promise to refine risk stratification and intervention timing, opening avenues for non‐antimicrobial strategies that bolster calf resilience.
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Management of Bovine Respiratory Disease in Dairy Calves publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in management of bovine respiratory disease in dairy calves across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Bovine respiratory disease (BRD): A complex syndrome in calves involving viral and bacterial pathogens, environmental stressors and host immune factors, leading to pneumonia and systemic illness.
Passive immune transfer (PIT): The acquisition of maternal antibodies by neonates through colostrum ingestion, essential for early protection against infectious agents.
Clinical scoring system: A structured tool that assigns numerical values to observable signs of disease, enabling objective and timely diagnosis and guiding therapeutic decisions.
References
- Multi-omics reveals that alkaline mineral water improves the respiratory health and growth performance of transported calves. Microbiome (2024).
- Development of a novel clinical scoring system for on-farm diagnosis of bovine respiratory disease in pre-weaned dairy calves. PeerJ (2014).
- Failure of Passive Immune Transfer in Calves: A Meta-Analysis on the Consequences and Assessment of the Economic Impact. PLOS ONE (2016).
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