Economic Considerations with Bovine Respiratory Disease Interventions

Abstract

A Monte Carlo spreadsheet (Microsoft® Excel; Oracle® Crystal Ball) model was designed to compare return to ownership and management between alternate bovine respiratory disease (BRD) prevention strategies and between alternate first-pull BRD treatment regimens based on probability distributions of performance variables, as well as different BRD risk and outcome (retreatment percentage and/or case fatality risk). These stochastic models indicate that factors unrelated to the incidence and outcome of BRD are important drivers affecting the economic value of both BRD prevention and treatment. Results also indicate that today’s historically high cost of gain places negative pressure on the economic value of BRD prevention and treatment. In addition, the models indicate that level of morbidity risk has a stronger association with dollars available to prevent or treat BRD than any of the measures of BRD prevention or treatment effectiveness. Therefore, being able to accurately predict groups of cattle at high risk for BRD and focusing expenditures on those groups, while minimizing expenditures on cattle with low BRD incidence, has the highest potential for economic pay-back, and this is increasingly important as cost of gain increases.