Idaho Farmer Shares Success With AHV Respi

Rudi DeWinkle has been a dairy farmer for 21 years, and bought his farm, Solid Rock Ranch, in Nampa, Idaho, about 5 years ago. He says he “really likes the cows. And the calves. A lot.”

Once a veterinary major, Rudi switched over to nutrition and enjoys seeing how changing nutrition can effect his herd’s health and production. One of Rudi’s major struggles as a dairyman has been the high stress time of moving calves into group pens. He relates that even if he weans them early, they get stressed and that impacts their immune system. Since they are bellering and not eating or resting as much as they should, the stress was leading to respiratory challenges, running through his entire calf pen.

Given AHV a chance after visit from AHV vet

A few years back, a vet from AHV was at his farm telling him about the AHV protocols, and Rudi says he was suspicious. “I thought this is foo foo dust, and if it works like he says it does, dairy farming would be easy, but most of the products don’t do what they say they will do.” But, Rudi says he had been struggling with this calf respiratory issue for 20 years, so he gave AHV a try.

Gaining confidence in the products first

Rudi tried Respi powder, and put it on the calf grain and the TMR. DeWinkle says “just like he said, the respiratory challenges got worse before it got better. They coughed for 3 days, but within 5 days less than half were coughing, and in a week there wasn’t one cough left in that pen. That’s what really convinced me.”

After success with Respi, Rudi tried Quick, Extra, and Aspi from AHV. And he shares that “although I find these products expensive, they work really, really well.”

The creamery bonus earns so much that I can pay for my AHV products

DeWinkle says that now when he does a test on somatic count cows, especially young ones. He says “I believe in Quick, Aspi and Extra so much that I give a pill of each, and when I do a test, a high percentage will easily go to 100,000 by the next test.” He says that he has a creamery that gives a bonus for low somatic, and so the bonus pays for the AHV products.

Rudi also comments “The one thing I really like about AHV is that it is 100% drug free. I don’t have to worry about a hospital pen or worry about dumping milk. I literally tried everything for my calves, and nothing worked. I really didn’t think a drug-free product would work, but it does.”

“AHV has made a huge difference in my operation, because I think the people at AHV are moving in the direction that our industry is headed worldwide.”