Bovine Respiratory Disease: How to Spot Early Signs

18 Feb 2026 News 3 min

Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) is one of the most common and costly health problems on dairy farms. It’s also known simply as pneumonia, or “shipping fever”; an acute, stress-related form of BRD that typically develops after a long transport.

It isn’t caused by just one thing, but rather by what’s known as the bovine respiratory disease complex – a mix of stress, viruses, and bacteria that can quickly take down even healthy-looking calves.

The most common bovine respiratory disease symptoms include coughing, fever, and labored breathing.

Calves may lose their appetite, lie down more, experience accelerated breathing, a change in temperature and generally look dull. The real challenge is that by the time you notice these visible signs, the disease is often already well advanced. Early detection and quick bovine respiratory disease treatment are critical to saving calves and preventing serious losses.

Why BRD is Such a Problem

For farmers, BRD isn’t just an animal health issue; it’s an economic one. Calves that battle pneumonia often struggle to catch up in growth, which means they won’t perform as well later in life. This is why bovine respiratory disease prevention matters so much.

Cows have a relatively limited lung capacity in proportion to their body weight. Therefore, it’s crucial to maintain good lung health throughout their life. Issues like BRD translate into lower milk yields, higher veterinarian bills and in some cases, calf mortality.

How Cow Monitoring Technology Helps

Relying on visual checks for BRD can be a tricky business. Coughing, nasal discharge, or falling behind compared to the rest of the herd can be signs of BRD. But calves and cows, prey animals by nature, are experts at hiding weaknesses. This makes it harder to spot bovine respiratory disease symptoms.

That’s where cow monitoring technology makes a real difference. By keeping track of activity and behavior around the clock, these systems can identify early warning signs that would otherwise be missed.

For example, opting for an ultrasound at an early state can detect budding pneumonia. Something that sometimes occurs when calves and cows receive health alerts and nothing comes out of the clinical examination.

CowManager Calf Guide

Download the Calf Guide to discover how CowManager sensors can detect illness sooner, reduce antibiotic use, and promote faster recovery, ultimately protecting your future milk production.

Download Calf Guide

Monitor Herd Health with CowManager

A great example of a BRD prevention tool is CowManager’s Youngstock Monitor, designed specifically to track calf health. The system collects detailed data on ear temperature, eating and rumination time, behavior and activity and flags anything unusual. When a calf shows changes that could indicate the bovine respiratory disease complex, the system alerts the farmer early, giving time to act before the disease becomes severe.

This approach supports earlier bovine respiratory disease treatment, which improves recovery rates, reduces antibiotic use, and ultimately lowers mortality. Healthier calves grow into healthier, more productive cows – and that protects your bottom line.

The CowManager system enables farmers to keep an eye on their herd’s entire life cycle, monitoring them from calf to cow with just one ear sensor. Comparing groups, diving into the data and making sure their herd gets everything they need.

When calves become cows, CowManager’s Health Module continues to track their health, ensuring a lifetime of monitoring.

Keeping BRD from Being Damaging

Monitoring is powerful, but it works best alongside strong everyday management. Good bovine respiratory disease prevention practices include ensuring calves get enough colostrum, reducing stress during weaning and transport, maintaining proper ventilation, keep group changes at a minimum and manage them well, and following vaccination programs.

When these are combined with technology like CowManager’s Health monitor, it’s the best defense against BRD.

Protecting calves from bovine respiratory disease isn’t just better for animal welfare – it’s better for your business.

CowManager Benefits

Catch Diseases Early, Reduce Sick Cows

Get alerted immediately when a cow isn't ruminating or eating, and intervene proactively. Pick up on diseases like mastitis and ketosis in an early stage.

Improve Herd Performance

Your cow's ears are full of vital information. Monitor their rumination, eating, inactivity, activity, ear temperature, and high active behavior.

From Calf to Cow

Our lightweight sensor is designed to last a lifetime, offering a seamless and continuous monitoring solution tailored to your specific farm and your cow's life phase.

Modules & Extra Functionalities

Health

Get an alert up to 3 days before any signs of clinical illness. Or, if your cow is already sick, monitor recovery in detail.

Fertility

Increase profit with timely insemination. Know exactly when a cow is in heat and when to inseminate.

Nutrition

Prevent heat stress and disease, take your feed management to the next level, and achieve the goals set for your herd.

Transition

Experience smoother transitions and healthier herds with our advanced Transition Monitor.

Youngstock

Effective calf health management leads to increased future milk production and a healthier, more productive herd.

Auto Drafting

Separate cows with heat or health alerts from the rest of the herd with the integrated Auto Drafting functionality.

MultiView

Give your staff, veterinarian, nutritionist, and other advisors access to selected cow data.

Sort my Cow (USA)

Automatically separate cows with heat or health alerts with Sort my Cow and the CowManager sorting gate.

Draft my Cow (NZ)

Automatically separate cows with heat or health alerts with Draft my Cow and the CowManager drafting gate.

Find my Cow

Find a cow that’s in heat, sick or in the wrong pen within seconds with our Locator and Flash tools.