Utah Ag Industry Highlights

Poultry Species

Avian Pox (Fowl Pox)

Dr. David D. Frame

david.frame@usu.edu

435-851-2233

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Even though autumn heralds the waning of the mosquito season, there is one chicken disease that we ought to review that can be mosquito-transmitted: avian pox, or fowl pox. Fowl pox outbreaks have been relatively scarce in Utah until last summer. For some reason (or more likely, reasons), it began showing up mainly in the northern end of the State. I have heard of at least one case this year.

Avian pox is a viral disease affecting chickens and many other birds caused by Avipoxvirus. These viruses are fairly species-specific. The disease spreads slowly from bird to bird. Although transmission typically requires a vector, such as mosquitos or mites that harbor the virus, bird-to-bird transmission can also occur through scratches, pecking scabs, etc.

Fowl pox can infect all ages of chickens. There are two forms of the disease: cutaneous or “dry”

form (on skin) and diphtheritic or “wet” form (inside membranes of mouth, trachea and esophagus).

Both forms can occur together. The cutaneous form is characterized by nodules that turn into scabs

on face, comb, and wattles. The diphtheritic form is manifested in respiratory distress, such as

gasping, wheezing, and difficult breathing. Care must be exercised in ruling out other respiratory

diseases, such as infectious laryngotracheitis and infectious bronchitis. Definitive diagnosis of

fowl pox requires the assistance of a poultry diagnostic laboratory.

Control is accomplished by following these recommendations.

1.   Isolate affected chickens (all affected birds can be housed together if needed, but away from

the main area where any unaffected flocks are housed).

Figure 1. Severe case of cutaneous (“dry”) form of fowl pox.

2.   After recovery, it is probably best to depopulate before replacement chickens are brought

onto premises.

3.   After removal of the infected flock, thoroughly clean out pen and remove all litter and dust.

Wash down with soap and water. Wash out all drinkers, feeders, and other equipment. Disinfect with

a household chlorine bleach solution. (This will only be helpful on clean surfaces free of organic

debris.)

4.   Repair and eliminate any sharp edges in pens and elsewhere within the coop and run where

chickens might cut or scrape themselves.

5.   Maintain an ongoing mite control program, including application of approved insecticide to

roosts, nests, and floors.

6.   Consider screening off run and coop during mosquito season.

7.   Eliminate standing water, old tires, garbage, old equipment, and vegetation from around the

coop and runs. Keep manure and litter cleaned up to minimize fly populations.

8.   If lawful in your area, a vaccination program initially using a pigeon pox-origin vaccine

might be helpful. Please confer with a veterinarian who specializes in poultry before beginning, as

improper application and use of fowl pox vaccines could cause serious problems for your chickens

There is no treatment for fowl pox. Specific treatment recommended by a poultry veterinarian may be

needed for any secondary infections that may occur. Once a chicken has run through a course of fowl

pox, it becomes immune from future fowl pox outbreaks. Fowl pox is not a human pathogen.

Figure 1. Severe case of cutaneous (“dry”) form of fowl pox

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Dairy

The Future Employees on Dairies

Dr. Allen Young

allen.young@usu.edu

435-797-3763

The dairy industry is very dependent on employee labor and we hire a lot of people. They are primarily made up of Latino workers; the majority being from Mexico. On the surface, that seems pretty straight-forward, EXCEPT, we can’t find and keep employees. I wish it were a simple fix, but it is multi-dimensional and is only going to get worse. In fact, the adoption of robotics on dairies is fueled by this problem.

The trend in the U.S. is for dairies to get larger. With that increased size comes a need to hire more individuals who aren’t from the immediate family. Over the last 20 or so years, that niche is being filled by labor from countries outside the U.S.; primarily Mexico and other Latin American countries. It’s not coming from U.S. citizens, even though the industry has tried, unsuccessfully, for years to recruit from this pool of people. As more people from other countries are hired, things like language, social customs, farm background, and level of training have changed and have created challenges to running the dairy. In the past few years, wages in other work sectors (i.e. construction) and high number of jobs available have created competition for diminishing number of workers. Increased government interest in immigration and ICE raids have moved these individuals away from agriculture.

With the increased need for workers, and fewer that are available to work, how do you stay in business? One area is to invest in robotics. The interest has been steadily going up – even with large dairies who previously were less interested. In fact, I met last week with individuals from a large dairy that are making plans to begin converting to robots. However, not everyone can, or will, move in that direction. If that is the case, how do you become a business that individuals want to work for and STAY with? That was the subject of a research article recently published where they asked the employees of 12 dairies (Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut) what they thought about their bosses. The number of employees ranged from 10 to 28 (I know of one dairy here in Utah that employs over 100). This group were interesting to me because they had a much higher percentage of non-Latino workers than what you will find here in the west. Based on the results of that survey, I will highlight just a few areas that I think will help you become employer of the year.

1. Every business has turnover. It has a huge cost to a business in terms of wages, re-training and lost productivity. My first area has to do with the turnover on these 12 dairies. It ranged from 8% to 144% (the later value means that every job on the dairy (on average) had a new employee over the span of a year PLUS half of those job had 2 different employees for that year). Using industry norms, I estimate that the dairy with 144% turnover lost well over $500,000 that year due to employee turnover. Take home message (based on what I’ve seen over the years): if you have a high level of employee turnover, the problem is probably because of you, not them. It’s time to have someone independent of your farm come in and figure out what the issue(s) are so they can be fixed. This may mean that you look closely at yourself and are willing to change.
2. Direct comparisons of how employees answered several key questions versus how their employer thought they would answer showed that the employers (on average) really didn’t know or understand what their employees felt or thought about the dairy. Take home message: spend some time talking with them and asking questions. The concept that you hire someone for their ‘back’, but leave their ‘mind’ at home is not going to work anymore. Workers must be engaged in the business and you can’t fully tap into that resource unless you know what they are thinking. A question about frequency of recognition and praise within the past 15 days was scored the lowest of all questions by employees. Here is another area that doesn’t cost any money but goes a long way.
3. Frequency of training and perceived adequacy of training were also ranked very low by employees. A question about their desire to learn more and gain additional training was ranked very high. Most businesses invest a great deal of money in frequent training and skills updates. This concept of learning and training was reinforced for me several years ago when we did some Hispanic worker training for dairies in the area. All of the training was in Spanish and we provided lunch for them. All of the workers came up and thanked me after and when I saw them on their dairy, they all went out of their way to talk with me. I even had a couple come up to me in a local Mexican restaurant and introduce me to their spouse and children. I don’t know for sure, but I hope they became better employees. I also know of several dairy producers who wouldn’t send their workers to the training because they felt like they would lose them to other farms because of the wages they were paying. The workers already knew what the going rate was and all this did was reinforce their image of their boss. Take home message: take an hour, once a month, to do some updates and training. Extension is willing to help with this training. While you are at it, buy a pizza and soda. You’ll be surprised what you’ll learn.
4. Finally, employees rated themselves a 4.5 out of 5 on commitment to the farm success; the owners perception of how their employee would score the same question was 3.6 out of 5. Take home message: everyone needs to be on the same page in terms of how much they want the business to succeed; especially right now. Make sure the employees know what’s happening – good and bad.

Employees are a necessity on a dairy. They can be an asset or a pain in the a**. In these troubled times, it is of great importance to keep them engaged, productive and happy.

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Equine

Body Condition Scoring

Dr. Karl Hoopes

Karl.hoopes@usu.edu

435-797-0784

Owning a horse is a big responsibility. Most horse owners want to keep their horses healthy, looking good, and for them to be able to have some athletic ability. A major key to accomplishing these three goals is to keep your horse at a desirable body condition, or degree of fat cover. As with all aspects of horse ownership, horse owners have differed on what is ideal body weight of a horse. Also, many horse owners are not able to objectively evaluate the body condition of their horse. For instance, horses being shown in a halter class will carry more weight and condition than a horse that is being trained for racing. Veterinarians have struggled to convince some horse owners their horse is either overweight or underweight and a change in the horse’s body condition would be beneficial for the health of the horse. Terms such as “skinny”, “fat”, “thin”, “emaciated” and “fleshy” are subjective terms that can be applied to horses very differently by different individuals. Early in the 1980’s Dr. Don Henneke developed a body condition scoring system during his studies at Texas A&M University.1 The Henneke Body Condition Scoring System is a scientific, objective, standard scoring method that has since been accepted by the equine industry as the standard system to be used when evaluating the degree of fat cover on a horse. Body condition score (BCS) is an effective way to monitor your horse’s health and nutritional status. It is not difficult to learn and can be done visually and or by feeing fat cover or absence of fat cover at several points on the animal. It is widely accepted and used in the beef and dairy industries as a predictor of animal health and fertility.

Henneke Body Condition Scoring System

The Henneke Body Condition Scoring System identifies six key anatomical points of a horse to be evaluated when assigning a body condition score. These points are the neck, withers, shoulder, ribs, loin, and tailhead. Applying this system includes a visual appraisal as well as palpating the individual points to assess the amount of fat cover present. This system can be used across all breeds of horses without needing specialized equipment. The Henneke system uses a scale of 1-9 to describe each point. An extremely thin point without any fat cover is assigned a score of 1, while an extremely fat point with excessive fat cover is assigned a score of 9, with the remaining values falling in between. These scores can all be added together, and an average taken to systematically assign a horse a Body Condition Score (BCS).

Applying the Henneke system can be simple. Here is what you should look for when evaluating the individual points. (Care must be taken when assessing a horse that proper horse handling skills be utilized to ensure the safety of the evaluator.)

Making Changes

As we evaluate our horses we may identify opportunities to make changes in the diet to increase the health of our horses. Horses will consume 1.5 to 3.0% of their body weight daily (16.5-33 lbs. for an 1100 lbs. horse). To avoid unwanted digestive and health problems, care should be taken to spread out any dietary changes over 14-21 days. Also, remember that changes in BCS should take several months to achieve. When looking to change a BCS of a 1100 lb. horse, it takes approximately 35-45 lbs. of weight gain or weight loss. In order for a horse to gain 2.2 lbs. (1 kg), it takes 20,000 calories over its normal energy needs.

For weight loss, decreasing dietary intake and increasing energy expenditure offers the best results. Avoid high energy diets such as alfalfa hay and grains. Decrease the daily feeding amount to 1.5% of their ideal body weight, and if the horse is sound, gradually increase the activity level.

References

1Henneke, DR; Potter, GD; Kreider, JL; Yeates, BF (October 1983). “Relationship between condition score, physical measurements and body fat percentage in mares”. Equine Veterinary Journal. 15 (4): 371-2

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Rangeland Systems

Grazing to Target Invasive Annual Grasses

Dr. Melinda Ellison

ellison@uidaho.edu

208-756-2748

Invasive annual grasses have become problematic across the Western region because they readily out-compete more desirable perennial grasses, especially in areas that have been recently burned or the soil and vegetation have been disturbed. Furthermore, without intervention, these dominating annual grasses can grow several feet tall and become a persisting fuel for wildfire. Grazing can be an effective tool for reduction and control of invasive annual grasses, including cheatgrass and medusahead, if managed with that as the objective. Strategic livestock grazing can 1) decrease growth and spread of invasive annual grasses, 2) provide opportunity for perennial plant establishment, and 3) reduce fuel loads for wildfires.

Timing of Grazing

Annual grasses are most vulnerable to grazing when they are green, as seedlings and during early leaf growth, which occurs between germination (usually late-fall) and flowering and seed production (usually mid- to late-spring). The optimal time of grazing to reduce annual grasses coincides with the time of year that the perennial grasses are usually dormant, therefore providing a window of opportunity.

Late-fall and winter grazing is an effective way to decrease biomass to decrease fuel loads for wildfire, which decreases the fire risk the following year. In the spring, the growing annual grasses are green, palatable, and more vulnerable to grazing pressure, and the dormant perennial grasses will be less palatable to livestock and will not be as susceptible to impacts of intensive grazing. Because growing season varies so much by geographical location and climate, it is important to judge the best timing for grazing based on stage of growth of both the annual grasses and the perennial grasses. As soon as the perennial grasses begin to green up, continuing to graze intensively will stress both annual and perennial grasses, and eventually have greater impact on the desired perennial plants.

Grazing Strategy and Frequency

The best strategy for grazing to reduce invasive annual grasses is to graze intensively with high density stocking rates over a short period of time. The objective is to remove as much of the annual grass biomass throughout the winter and in the spring while it is green, before flowering and seed production. Furthermore, annual grasses should be intensively grazed repeatedly to induce as much stress on the growing plants as possible. Fortunately, annual grasses are most palatable and hold the most nutritive value when they are green in the spring. Cheatgrass, for example, has been reported to provide 15% crude protein in early May, and growing livestock gain well while grazing green cheatgrass. Medusahead has a smaller window of palatability for livestock, which has been suggested to only last for a few weeks prior to flowering. Furthermore, cattle have been reported to maintain and even improve body condition when grazed on pastures of mostly cheatgrass in the late-fall and supplemented with protein. Targeted grazing to control annual grasses should be applied for 2 or more years for best results.

Optimal Grazing Strategy to Reduce Invasive Annual Grasses

1. Graze intensively and repeatedly in the late-fall after perennial grasses have gone dormant and annual grasses have germinated and started growing.

Objective: Remove biomass and induce stress

1. Intensively and repeatedly graze invasive annual grasses repeatedly in the early-spring as they begin to grow back, but only while perennial grasses are dormant.

Objective: Remove biomass and prevent flowering and seed production

1. Once the perennial grasses start to green up and grow, do not graze until they have matured (~10 inches grass height is a good rule of thumb), and then only graze lightly during the growing season.

Objective: Establish perennial grasses

1. Graze to target invasive annual grasses for at least 2-3 years.