WHAT IS CERVID SOLUTIONS?
Cervid Solutions, LLC is a Herd Health Management Company built on decades of research and dedication. With the introduction of LifeCycles our commitment is to provide a resource where serious professionals in the Cervid industry can enroll and retrieve solutions. LifeCycles Members unlock the largest resource library of tools resulting in enhanced herd health.
Two words; professional commitment. As a LifeCycles Member (LCM), you are committing to the health of your animals and the long-term prosperity of your operation. Becoming an LCM symbolizes your dedication to your animal’s health, providing access to valuable information, products, and discounts.
The Pillars of Success – Animal Health
Let’s start this off by saying that I am not a veterinarian; I have no formal education in “deer management” and I am pretty stubborn. Sound familiar? Yep! That’s nearly every deer famer and rancher I know.
When I reflect on the journey that I know many have taken, one can’t help but wonder why we choose to reinvent the wheel when it comes to raising deer. People have propagated livestock for thousands of years and in today’s world, of limitless technology, you would think resources would be available for us to use on our path.
As I come into my 24th year of “deer (real) world education,” I would like to share what I feel are some of the “Pillars of Success” relating to general animal health. This is intended to be big picture stuff, not so much the nuanced detail of what separates the good from the great. We can simply look to the cattle, sheep, goat and other livestock industries for the recipe. If we adapt these ideas and concepts to fit the deer operations we run, we can be successful.
Pillar 1 – “Pen Density”
Let’s face it… you probably have too many deer. Why must we feel the need to cram so many animals into a confined space? As time moves forward, I have come to realize that limiting the number of deer on any given pasture is the most important thing in maintaining healthy animals. Healthy animals are success! For the vast majority of us, creating fawns (the next generation) is the most profitable way to extract income from your farm.
What is a good starting point for answering the question, “How many deer is too many?” Well, mortality and morbidity rates are an easy and known calculation. The animals that express this the most are fawns. Why? Because they are entering the world at birth with a naïve immune system and, generally speaking have the highest chance of getting sick or dying. As a rule, I like to see 4-6 adult does per acre, pre-fawning, on (if at all possible) fresh, winter-rested pastures or at least minimally impacted pasture. You can start with higher animal numbers, but my experience is that when I violate these rules I pay the price.
I could go on about this more, however, I want to explore another important topic…
Pillar #2: No Density
In addition to a robust vaccination program, good nutrition and the importance of year-round low-density pillars of success, we added another “pillar” to improve your operation and outcome. As discussed previously, low density, whether measured in number of adult animals per acre or pounds of animals per acre, is crucial to maintaining a healthy herd. However, as we continue to face new challenges, like bacteria load and situations each year, we must adapt and improve our herd health strategies.
Rotational grazing, “AMP” grazing (Adaptive Multi-Paddock grazing), or high density grazing and resting pastures have long been common practices in the cattle and livestock industries—and for good reason. We believe that incorporating periods of “no density” in your pens can significantly reduce the incidence of disease on your farm.
On our farm, we use the same few pens for fawning year after year, where the fawns remain with their mothers until weaning in the fall. In the past, we typically left adult animals in those pens after weaning. This past year, however, we made a change and rested one of three fawning pens. We left it empty from fall until spring. In the spring, several weeks before fawning, we moved the bred does into that pen. When fawning season arrived, the animals in that pen remained healthy, with no signs of clinical disease.
In short- dedicated “fawning only” pastures that have been rested in the winter months and low density of animals from spring to fall should provide for a great decrease in morbidity and mortality in future years. In pastures that can support it, it will also provide increased forage and biodiversity for animals to thrive while also reducing feed inputs. WIN WIN!
This pillar may require you to move animals or even cull some to allow pastures to rest. However, we are confident that the long-term benefits will outweigh the short-term challenges. We recommend resting your fawning pens from October to April. During this time, you can also take advantage of the opportunity to improve your pasture—have the soil tested, assess its nutrient levels, plant a cover crop, apply lime, or clear trees and brush to enhance the space.
Pillar 2 – “Vaccination Program”
I know… this coming from a guy who sells vaccines! Let me share the short version of my story with you and then you may draw your own conclusions. For the first 10 years of managing a whitetail herd I was quite “anti-vax.” I said things like, “These are deer; they live in the wild just fine.” And my favorite was, “My deer don’t really get sick much and, if they do, I just give them some meds.” As time went on, and I had more animals on the same piece of ground for years and years, my bacterial problems slowly grew along with my herd inventory. I decided to add some commercial cattle vaccines to my health program (which really was far from defined at that point in time) and I was less than satisfied with the results.
We wonder why these vaccines do not work! “Such and such farmer,” with way more experience than myself, uses them and he told me they work great. A simple review with my herd-vet about what coverage these vaccines provided simply did not match up with the bacteria found in our necropsy reports (sampling and diagnostics is a whole other can of beans). So what options are we left with knowing the commercial vaccines are not providing adequate coverage for the most common bacteria found? Enter the autogenous biologic. Autogenous biologics are custom vaccines, consisting of herd specific (homologous) antigens (i.e., these are made for cervid!).
The results of just adding this product showed tremendous improvement in the overall mortality rates we were experiencing, though morbidity (how many antibiotics we need to administer due to sick animals) remained above our threshold. Over the course of the next decade we culled, reduced imports of new animals, continued twice-per-year vaccine administration, and finally implemented strict “Pillar 1” adherence. The results have been outstanding! But we were fortunate to start with a great base prior to Pillar 1 and Pillar 2…
Pillar 3 – “Nutrition”
I am jaded, discussing nutrition as a topic, simply for the fact that my feed program has been unchanged for about 15 years and the quality of what we feed is top-grade and CONSISTENT. The whitetail deer is incredibly adaptive to many environments and feed types and are a true success story in and of themselves in North America with present populations of around 35 million animals when just 100 years ago they were few in number. The whitetail deer can and does have specific nutritional requirements to thrive, however, as Man involves himself he tends to think that more is better… like 20+ percent protein levels… or 12+ percent fat… and so on.
My suggestion about feed is really simple – keep it simple, balanced, and buy the best you can. As the largest input, not only on the balance sheet but physically into the animal, feed plays a key role in herd health. It is a foundational item and input that sets the stage for genetic expression and health.
In hindsight, I wish these pillars were implemented into my day-to-day operations long ago and all at the same time. But sharing them with you today gives me great optimism about what the future of the cervid industry has in store.
