Dr. Katie Rein started her veterinary practice, Crazy Mountain Veterinary Service, in 2007 as an ambulatory practice consisting of just herself and her vet truck. More than 15 years later she has grown the practice to include three additional full-time vets at two locations in Harlowton and White Sulphur Springs, MT. The practice primarily serves beef cattle producers, but also offers small animal and equine services.
Katie grew up south of Harlowton on her family’s cow-calf operation in Melville that has been in the family since 1893—so she has longstanding roots in the industry. She worked towards her undergraduate degree at Montana State University and headed west to Washington State University for vet school. Following a yearlong internship at Texas A&M University, she worked at a Harlowton vet clinic for two years before starting her own practice.
“I started out with just word of mouth advertising, and I would basically go anywhere to work on a cow,” Katie told WLJ. “We have a very wide practice region and as it keeps growing, I just keep adding more vets.”
Health protocols
This past summer, vets at the practice saw many incidences of foot rot and pinkeye thanks to the spring moisture and taller grass. Heading into fall, respiratory outbreaks picked up and now as we approach winter, vaccination protocols and nutritional management should be top of mind for producers.
Katie said more producers in the area are transitioning to vaccinating their cow herd in the fall just because springtime can be so busy. “We haven’t noticed that much of a difference between the breed up in the herds that vaccinate in spring versus those that vaccinate in fall,” she said.
Recommended parasite control measures have also evolved over the past few years, changing from deworming everything going into the winter to testing random fecal samples to see if cows are shedding many parasites. Some producers are even opting to not deworm the mature cow herd and only deworm the two- and three-year-olds.
“The idea behind refugia—where you don’t deworm part of the herd—is that over time it should help decrease resistance to our dewormers,” she said. “We’re not really coming out with any new dewormers, and we need to make sure that the ones we’re using are going to keep working and we don’t have as many problems with resistance in cattle as they do with sheep.”
For stress management, Katie noted the growing use of a new product called FerAppease, which is essentially a maternal hormone that is topically applied above an animal’s nose and back of head to decrease stress. The product has been touted for its benefits during the weaning process but can be used in all ages of cattle during periods of stress. Katie said that she has heard of some studies that show the pheromone didn’t have much effect at weaning, but that numerous studies showed great results later during the feeding period.
“I think it deserves more research,” she said, “But anecdotally it does seem like the calves bawl less and if they’re spending less time bawling, they’re spending more time eating and drinking and getting used to their pen and getting on feed.”
Winter management
“Now is the time to put pounds on your cows,” Katie said. “Cows don’t have a calf at their side and aren’t yet in late gestation, so now is the time to act.” She advocates for sending in hay samples to get forage analyses and learn what needs to be supplemented through the winter.
“The time between now and the last trimester is where you can really affect change in your herd nutritionally,” she said. “Due to drought the last couple of years, many cows have been going into winter thin and we are seeing more sick baby calves.”
“I think we’re going to have a lot better set up this year because we came off such a tremendous summer,” she said. “But I’ve still seen some thin cows when I was preg checking this fall.”
Katie also said that bulls tend to get ignored in the winter but still turned out and expected to get to work in the spring. Bulls need to be fed just like the cows, she said, and given shelter from winter elements.
“There’s a lot of newer studies showing that if they’re going downhill before the breeding season, it’s going to take that much more to come back to make it all the way through breeding season,” Katie said. “So now is also the time to get the bulls in shape for the next breeding season.”
New regulations
Katie discussed the impact of new federal regulations on the veterinary medicine sector, highlighting the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) and Guidance for Industry #263 as the most significant changes in recent years. The final VFD rule requires clients to be part of a valid veterinarian-client-patient-relationship (VCPR), and the guidance measure made all medically important over-the-counter antibiotics prescription only.
As far as adhering to the new VFD guidelines, Katie said the practice now has a list of ranchers who have a valid VCPR, and the vets go through and update it at least once per year.
“It definitely has changed how we practice on a day-to-day basis,” she said. “It’s not insurmountable; it is good to have a vet involved in making animal health decisions as far as what antibiotics to use and things like that.”
However, she noted, “While this step is not insurmountable, I’m worried about what the next step is going to be, because it feels like it’s going to keep progressing.”
She voiced concern about the initial measure escalating into more restrictive measures, with the next step potentially restricting her from selling a bottle of antibiotics to a rancher, allowing only a single dose per animal. Taking it a step further could mandate that only a veterinarian could administer the dose.
“I just worry about what the future may lead to if we don’t keep an eye on it,” she said.
Katie is also a member of the Montana Board of Veterinary Medicine, where one of her initial achievements was contributing to writing the regulations for licensing veterinary technicians. Montana was one of the remaining states that did not mandate licensing for vet techs, and the legislature passed a bill in 2021 to begin licensing techs.
One of Katie’s current responsibilities on the board is collaborating with the Board of Pharmacy to establish veterinary retail facilities in Montana. After Guidance for Industry #263 was implemented, there were locations in the state selling antibiotics that were no longer able to sell. Recently passed legislation will make it to where stores can apply to be a veterinary retail facility and employees can apply through the Board of Veterinary Medicine to be a licensed veterinary pharmacy technician to dispense the medication.
Katie gave the example of a customer who has a valid VCPR with her but does not live close to her. If the customer lives near a veterinary retail facility, they would be able to get a written prescription from Katie and have the prescription fulfilled at the facility. The facilities would negate the need for a supply store to employ a vet on staff to sell pharmaceuticals.
Katie underscored that the motivation behind the VFD and increased restrictions is grounded in a significant cause: combatting antibiotic resistance. “I think that we still need to use antibiotics as tools to maintain animal health and animal welfare, but we also do need to be cognizant that we don’t want to be contributing to antibiotic resistance either,” she finished. — Anna Miller, WLJ managing editor
