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Discussion

University of Wisconsin

Abstract

Three major props underneath livestock production are recognized to be nutrition, genetics, and economics or management. It is obvious, however, that if disease in our herds is not adequately controlled, whether in the nature of infection or parasitism, all of our efforts in the above three respects may go for naught. Many of us can remember successful breeders who have been bankrupted through tuberculosis or contagious abortion in their herds.

While disease control is an obvious necessity on livestock farms the country over, we may ask ourselves, is this obvious need reflected in the curriculum of the average animal husbandry student? Is he asked or encouraged to take as much veterinary science work as he is in the other subjects underlying livestock production?

On the whole, we must admit that this is not the case. Perhaps there is a good reason for it in that the treatment of diseased animals, while necessarily involving good herd management, nevertheless is a highly specialized field. As a matter of fact, we temporarily hire the services of veterinarians for such diagnosis and treatment. This seems a perfectly reasonable thing to do. In contrast we would hardly think of hiring a nutritionist or geneticist or economist. To be sure, this might under certain conditions be done by large livestock farms, but the chances are that long before doing so they would engage the services of a veterinarian either on a full-time or part-time basis.