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>> Maintaining and managing the health of any type of herd animal can present some daunting
challenges for producers and veterinarians, when considering diseases such as bovine viral
diarrhea, or BVD, in cow-calf operations. Now, those trying to develop strategies to
control BVD can rely on a new Internet-based tool developed at the Kansas State University
College of Veterinary Medicine called BVD CONSULT. This BVD management aid was created
after Drs. Bob Larson and Brad White decided that there was need for the results of BVD
research to be more accessible.
>> DR. BOB LARSON: There's been a lot of work done on, about BVD itself. It's a virus,
we know a lot about the virus. We know about the diseases that it can cause in cattle and
we even know good ways to try to minimize the impact of that disease in cattle herds.
One of the struggles that we have is how do you implement that in the different types
of herd situations that you run into in the real world. And so we wanted to develop a
tool that takes a lot of the works that's been done by scientists all over the world,
really, and make that into a decision aid so that producers and their veterinarians
can come up with the best specific protocol for them.
>> Drs. Larson and White worked with faculty from the University of Nebraska, Mississippi
State University and Auburn University and developed a basic structure for the program.
Envisioning the tool to mimic a conversation between a veterinarian and a client, K-State
veterinary graduate Dr. Sherri Merrill was hired to help guide the development of the
final program.
>> DR. SHERRI MERRILL: It's set up as a series of questions asking whether or not
you have BVD in your herd and then it asks about different management practices that
you can use to either get rid of BVD if you have it in your herd or keep it out if you
don't have it in your herd. And then the producer has to decide whether or not they
can implement that management practice or continue to do so if they've already been
doing it. Then they just select, yes, I can do that, or no, I can not. And they'll receive
a response based on that question. Then they'll receive another, move on to the next recommended
management practice.
>> DR. BOB LARSON: It is very interactive and the types of questions are exactly the
types of questions that a veterinarian is likely to ask their client. Such as, what
is your plan for bringing new animals on the farm? Are you able to quarantine them and
test them? Yes or no? What kind of fence-line contact do you have with other animals? A
little, a lot or none? And then it answers based on that type of contact what may be
the best protocols to protect your herd.
>> While the online tool is meant to be used with veterinarian input, it can also be accessed
by anyone who has questions related to BVD management.
>> DR. SHERRI MERRILL: On the producer side, I also can see if producers have those questions
and maybe they don't have that relationship with their veterinarian or they're just
wondering about it and are looking for information on the Internet, then I think they may come
across this program and be able to work through it. Of course, we encourage them to go through
it with their veterinarian and it specifically says on there, to work closely with your veterinarian
and make sure they're involved.
>> Depending on how much interest BVD CONSULT receives, similar decision tools could be
developed for other diseases.
>> DR. BOB LARSON: We think this type of tool can be really be valuable for a number of
different diseases, kind of helping producers and veterinarians ask a series of questions
that help them design the best program for that particular farm. So we would like to
take this tool and add other disease to it and maybe trichomoniasis CONSULT or a calf
diarrhea CONSULT. And so, we would like to do that. We will see, based on interest and
funding, if we will move forward.
>> BVD CONSULT, as well as many other BVD management resources, can now be found at
www.BVDinfo.org.