If Joe Stookey had his way, the term "shipping fever" never would have been coined, because it diverts attention from the primary stress associated with sickness in recently transported calves."I wish we could go back and name it 'weaning fever,' [because] that's what it is," explains Stookey, an animal behaviorist at the University of Saskatchewan Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM). "There is no event we impose on cattle morestressful than weaning."At least that's true with traditional, abrupt weaning, where calves are separated from their dams and often loaded straight onto a truck headed for a new location. Which means that's true of most calves.
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