Episode 19 DWP- Introducing Cervid Health Management

Cervid Health Management (CHM) helps deer, elk, and exotic producers build smarter, more effective herd‑health programs. We combine decades of hands‑on cervid experience with science‑backed solutions — custom‑designed for your operation, your environment, and your goals.

https://cervidhealth.com/

This podcast is built around real-world experience, collaboration with producers and veterinarians, and nearly three decades of hands-on work across North America. The goal is simple: provide practical insight that helps producers make better decisions for herd health, genetics, and long-term success.

Facebook-
Cervid Health Management- https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?...
Deer Wizard Ranch- / redridgedeer
Instagram- Cervid Health Management- / cervid_health
Deer Wizard Ranch- / deer_wizard_ranch
Email- deerwizard64@gmail.com

Website- www.fusionanimalhealth.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to the Deer Wizard Podcast, conversation shaping the deer industry. I'm your host, Josh Newton, the Deer Wizard. Through interviews, advocacy, and industry news, we deliver field-proven insights to help producers build better herbs. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Deer Wizard Podcast. We've got a solo show for you today. Um, I want to introduce you to cervid health management. It's a company I started a few months ago, and it's really the culmination of my time and experience in the uh cervid industry. And so, you know, over the course of this will be my 27th year uh raising deer, over the course of that time I've had a ton of experience um raising animals. And so uh servit health was was basically created to kind of formalize that system, and all this is done through trial and error, and I'm able to share a lot of that experience with you, and so we've looked at again my my time and experience, and said, you know, what are the things that stand out most to me? What are the things that I can share with others to help be successful at raising deer? Because it it's a challenge, right? There's there's a learning curve, and that may be um recommendations on you know pen density or um you know resting pastures, uh dealing with health-related issues, you know, uh nutrition, supplements, um, how do we get fawns from you know day one to end market successfully? How do we keep our mortality levels low? How do we set up handling facilities? All these different things, right? And so for for some of you that um have done this a while, you have your systems in place. And you know, I have many of mine as well, and all these are shaped around, you know, just years and years of of having deer and seeing what um what works and what doesn't. And of course, you know, I have a a great veterinarian that I've I've worked with that specializes in uh small ruminants, sheepcoats, deer, and has for a long time, has a bunch of exotic work under her belt. And you know, we've we've used her as our our herd vet and you know, repo specialist for 24 or 25 years now. And so she's contributed immensely to my knowledge, um, specifically around animal health and in the kind of targeted area of bacteria, disease, etc. And so um servit health is is set up to to share those those experiences that I had. Um one of the things that we found most useful and impactful for us, um there's kind of three or four different foundations. Um, and of course there's there's many more, there's lots of little nuances, but um it was maybe 2009, 2010, and we had uh just a a really big challenge with bacteria. And I was anti-vaccine generally speaking. I had tried vaccines before, and uh I just wasn't a big fan of using them because I wasn't seeing the results that that I wanted. And so we developed a a custom vaccine. Fast forward to today, uh, servit health management has um protocols for adult animals and uh young stock in the servit space, whether that be whitetail, mule deer, elk, uh, red deer, fallow deer, etc. And it functions as a educational platform and focuses on the use of custom-made vaccines. So we have a custom-made vaccine that's been developed over um, you know, a course of time, and it focuses really on target bacteria that uh cervids commonly have issues with. And so that is, you know, there's kind of two separate categories. One would be your uh enteric or your digestive system uh-based bacteria, and so the most common ones that we see are E. coli and clostradiols. Um, there are some others, and and of course, there's geographic nuance and farm-specific nuance to some of these, but those are the common ones we find. It's not to say that you might not have a salmonella problem, um, or something along those lines. But generally speaking, um, your E. coli's and your clostridials seem to pop up a lot. And then uh the other side is targeted towards pneumonias. And you know, a lot of the a lot of the pneumonias that we face are found frequently when we do find it. So those would be your pastorellas. Uh, within pastorella would be kind of biebersteinia, and then your various mycoplasmas, which are a whole show in and of themselves, as far as the the nuance around them, and then you have uh truparella and fusobacterium. So when I say fuso, a lot of people think of abscesses on the face and in fawns, um, and like foot rot and things of that nature. And what we found is that is true. Um, a lot of times the fusobacterium is accompanied by a secondary infection of truperella pyogenes, and um, it can be found in the lungs, and more like regularly we we find um fusobacterium and uh trooperella pyogenes in upper respiratory infections. So the vaccines are are developed to help provide some protection for those. The other foundations outside of of vaccine work, and and the reason I mention that is because that's that's a product that we sell that we've had great success with. And you know, there's been many, many farms that have implemented a custom vaccine program that have seen those successes too, and it gives us a really good baseline to work from for our animal health programs. Um and so uh the other foundations are um pen density or pasture density, management and rotation, and the the other side of that is is obviously nutrition, and there's tons of different nuance and nutrition, especially um given your your geographic area. So, you know, the way we feed animals, I'm in Pennsylvania, the way we feed animals in the north is is similar, but difference uh different in what we feed them uh compared to the the south, right? And some of that is based on the availability of different types of feedstuffs. Um, so like I'll give you an example, like cottonseed's commonly used in the south, and it's because its availability is is there to be had at a reasonable rate. We don't use cottonseed up in the north, right? It's it's um it's not something that's grown here, and so we don't like we don't truck it in because then the cost is the same as soybeans. Well we got soybeans right outside the outside the door. Um and then there's availability of you know different, you know, organic excuse me, organic uh vitamins and the bioavailability to those and um you know minerals, whether they're um you know, chelated or not, or all these different things that relate around nutrition. So as we've worked on developing uh servit health, all these factors play into that. The other part of it is uh an educational platform, right? And it's again to be able to kind of codify and share my experiences through different forms of media, whether that be this podcast that you're listening to or watching, which I greatly appreciate. Um, it could be long form articles, it could be social media posts, um, it could be short videos. And so it's a it's a hub for for all those things. Now, we're just recently launching our servit health website. I encourage you to check that out. I got the link in the show notes. It's just servithealth.com. And the other aspect of uh servit health is knowledge through diagnostics. And I understand that there's there's quite a bit of nuance that has been um had around that conversation of diagnostics and what good diagnostics are, how they work, etc. And I know that there are hundreds of you that have submitted diagnostic material, whatever that may be, and not gotten the results that you think that you should have, right? And so we've created our herd health discovery program, and what that is, is it's just a combination of the um the work that I've done, your feedback from the farm, your veterinarian input, and our diagnostic lab that we use. And so it's an ability for you to contact me, give me some farm history, maybe it's on specific animals, maybe it's uh a larger, broader context, and in a relatively quick and efficient manner, root right down to the problem that's being caused, right? Get diagnostic material, whether that be fecal samples, um, lung tissues, nasal swabs, whatever that is for that particular uh case that you're working on, get that to the lab and then be able to review that and figure out exactly what the problem is. Come up with um some sort of treatment plan so you can stop it in its tracks, and then have a discussion relating to what long-term prevention looks like. And that's where a lot of the really good discussion comes into play about management practices, prevention protocols, animal movement, stocking densities, and all those different uh aspects that come with raising deer. And so I really enjoy having those conversations, even though you know it's a hard time and we're we're trying to fix problems and there's animals' lives at stake, because I get to learn from all of you, and that makes me a better deer manager, and it also provides insights to a lot of other people that have questions. So it's a served health is a community growth project, it's meant for the deer industry to succeed from an animal health standpoint, and so we're just gonna keep working on that, right? And we're gonna interact with with you all as um, you know, deer and elk managers, identify the problems, and then provide education surrounding them so we don't have to deal with them in the future. If we do deal with them, we can do that in an effective and economical manner while providing for animal health. So I wanted to introduce servant health management to you all, um, point you towards our website. We have some great resources there. And um in the short time frame coming up over the summer, we're gonna be building out our membership platform, which is gonna have a host of resources uh that we developed. And I want to encourage you to uh sign up for our Hoof Prince newsletter, and the Hoof Prince is our our membership program. Um it's a great way to get engaged on various topics. There's all sorts of different things that we're gonna be putting out. They could be health related, they could be related to, you know, fawn health, bottle feeding, stocking ranches, genetics, chronic wasting disease, EHD, industry news, all the things that we cover here on the Deer Wizard podcast um will be uh put out. I'm gonna try to do a monthly newsletter for you all. And uh it's a way for us to to engage. And any feedback that you have, uh I always appreciate. Um it's amazing the ingenuity and insights of the people within this industry. Um, y'all are great. I I can't tell you enough how driving it is uh for me personally to to be involved and it you know it helps me get up every day and go work with animals. And I I just you know, I it's a it's a passion for me in my life, and I wanted to uh to share that with you all. And I appreciate you sharing those insights back with me. So anyway, that's the the quick uh synopsis on uh servit health management. I wanted to introduce you to that and uh let you know that that is happening, it is going on. Um and we have uh we have a pretty good track record and proven system for you know uh animal health, and we want to be able to provide you products and services that help make your life easier and uh the animals that you keep healthier. So with that, stay tuned for another episode of the Deer Wizard Podcast.