A systematic review of disease control strategies in beef cow-calf herds, part 2: preweaned calf morbidity and mortality associated with neonatal calf diarrhea and bovine respiratory disease

Preventing neonatal calf diarrhea (NCD) and bovine respiratory disease (BRD) in cow-calf herds is essential to optimizing calfhood health. Disease control can prevent morbidity and mortality; however, evidence concerning the effectiveness of practices to achieve this is limited. The objective of this systematic review was to assess and summarize the evidence on the effectiveness of management practices to prevent calf morbidity and mortality from NCD and BRD in beef cow-calf herds. The population of interest was preweaned beef calves. The outcomes were calf morbidity and mortality caused by NCD and BRD. Only studies reporting naturally occurring diseases were included. Seventeen studies were deemed relevant, 6 studies of which were controlled trials or randomized controlled trials (RCTs), and 11 were observational studies. Most management practices had some evidence to support their use; however, the certainty of the findings was low to very low. Most of the practices were shown to impact both NCD and BRD. Yet, the different levels of consistency in the directionality of the findings suggest that some outcomes are more affected by some practices than others. More well-designed RCTs and cohort studies are required to provide reliable estimates to support recommended practices for cow-calf herds.