TANK30705
Well-known member
Will blackleg vaccinateing bred cows/heifers have any ill affects????
BLACKLEG VACCINATEING??
- Thread starter TANK30705
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Dave
Well-known member
No ill effects and maybe prevent others from occuring.
cross_7
Well-known member
Sir Loin":wtepjzcx said:
blackleg clostridial vaccine is not a mlv
Up in this part of the world, due to our liver fluke issues, everything gets 8-way clostridial at least once a year, twice in the younger stock.
It's one of, if not the, safest vaccine you can give. It's also one of the cheapest forms of prevention against a disease that kills with no advanced warning majority of the time. :cowboy:
It's one of, if not the, safest vaccine you can give. It's also one of the cheapest forms of prevention against a disease that kills with no advanced warning majority of the time. :cowboy:
inyati13
Well-known member
Aaron, please provide a little explanation of the connection between liver flukes and Clostridial bacteria. Liver flukes belong to the Phylum Platyhelminthes known as flat worms (also includes the tapeworms) vs the genus of bacteria, Clostridium. The vaccination certainly does not provide a cow immunity from an infestation of liver flukes so I am guessing there is some other relationship between the vaccination for blackleg and liver flukes!
The destruction of the liver by the flukes is prime real estate for clostridial bacteria. Particularly redwater, sordelli and chauveoi. They act almost as a secondary infection. Pretty much around here, all the livers, and some lungs/spleens, etc. are shot in the cattle, so blackleg is a question of when, not if in unvaccinated cattle.
inyati13
Well-known member
Thanks, Aaron. I had a good parasitology course in college and also medical entomology, graduate level invertebrate biology, etc. so I appreciate what you are saying about the damage liver flukes do. Many people don't fully appreciate how the life cycle of parasites can affect more than one organ. Everyone knows there are worms in the gut but most do not know that a parasites' life cycle especially the helminthes can ravage the other organs like lungs, liver, and kidneys before they settle out in the gut. I am very thankful for the drugs available to control parasites in cattle. I love my cattle and sleep better knowing some worm is not ravaging their liver. As a follow-up question, is there not an adequate means of controlling parasites up where you are at?
Our flukes are primarily Fasciola magna, which apparently is not affected, even the adults, by the ivermection/clorsulon combination drugs for flukes (so the vet says, I haven't verified that). Apparently, Valbazen may work. But the primary drug of choice, if it were readily available in N. America would be Fasinex.
Prevention is more of the key. Fencing/draining wet holes helps a lot. Although I don't hunt, I am very open to having people fill their tags on my properties, to keep the white-tail population in check. So if anyone on here ever wants to hunt big-bodied white tails in Northwestern Ontario, I will be more than willing to set you up on this place.
Being a biologist, I was asked for insight when a research study was done through the University of Manitoba's Agriculture Department involving flukes. They looked at livers of cattle and feed from operations across Manitoba. What they found was that the fluke infestation followed a gradient effect. The flukes were the worst in the southeast corner of the province (lowland/wet/marshy) and were completely gone in Central Manitoba (dry, rolling plains). So the higher and drier you are, the less likely you will have flukes. Although their were pockets of flukes in the higher/drier regions of the province, many of the infestations were the result of contaminated feed being trucked in from the southeast part of the province.
Northern Minnesota has the same issue with flukes as us, and by the time you hit central ND, nothing about liver flukes.
We've butchered many an animal that not only had a cooked liver, but also lungs and track marks on the inner lining of the carcass as well. One 2 year old heifer once had only one good lung. Beautiful looking heifer on the outside, but basically only working on one lung.
Prevention is more of the key. Fencing/draining wet holes helps a lot. Although I don't hunt, I am very open to having people fill their tags on my properties, to keep the white-tail population in check. So if anyone on here ever wants to hunt big-bodied white tails in Northwestern Ontario, I will be more than willing to set you up on this place.
Being a biologist, I was asked for insight when a research study was done through the University of Manitoba's Agriculture Department involving flukes. They looked at livers of cattle and feed from operations across Manitoba. What they found was that the fluke infestation followed a gradient effect. The flukes were the worst in the southeast corner of the province (lowland/wet/marshy) and were completely gone in Central Manitoba (dry, rolling plains). So the higher and drier you are, the less likely you will have flukes. Although their were pockets of flukes in the higher/drier regions of the province, many of the infestations were the result of contaminated feed being trucked in from the southeast part of the province.
Northern Minnesota has the same issue with flukes as us, and by the time you hit central ND, nothing about liver flukes.
We've butchered many an animal that not only had a cooked liver, but also lungs and track marks on the inner lining of the carcass as well. One 2 year old heifer once had only one good lung. Beautiful looking heifer on the outside, but basically only working on one lung.
inyati13
Well-known member
Aaron, thank you again. I never worked directly as a biologist but my BS and MS are in biology. I did my thesis in herpetology, nevertheless, I took a lot of invertebrate biology course work. It served me well and now being retired it serves me well raising cattle. You bring me to more questions with your last response. First, it is sad to know how harmful the parasites are. I love animals and like to see them taken care of. I hunted black bear in Northern Alberta when I was in Helena, Montana. The camp got its water from a pond. I got sick about the third day. I never go down easy but I was forced down for one day. I always thought it was a parasitic protozoan, maybe giardia or Entamoeba but I never thought about getting flukes. Do any of the flukes upthere set up shop in humanes? Why can't you get the drug you mentioned that is so effective? Is it not approved in Canada? Lastly, if the US keeps on the current track to becoming a socialist republic and our dollar becomes worthless, do you need an old but strong healthy work hand who loves cattle and working with them?
Never have I, my BS major is biology.
I would likely guess giardia. Although I can't remember how temperature-sensitive giardia is, if you were boiling the water at the camp.
With flukes, it's always a no-no to chew on a grass stem (like some old time farmer) because of the risk of ingesting flukes in the metacercariae stage, but I don't have first hand account of someone having flukes.
Your CDC has a really great page on flukes. One exception, the arrow pointing down from the cow and sheep doesn't happen. Cattle and sheep are dead-end carriers, the flukes don't migrate through the digestive system like they do with deer.
http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/fasciola/biology.html
I would likely guess giardia. Although I can't remember how temperature-sensitive giardia is, if you were boiling the water at the camp.
With flukes, it's always a no-no to chew on a grass stem (like some old time farmer) because of the risk of ingesting flukes in the metacercariae stage, but I don't have first hand account of someone having flukes.
Your CDC has a really great page on flukes. One exception, the arrow pointing down from the cow and sheep doesn't happen. Cattle and sheep are dead-end carriers, the flukes don't migrate through the digestive system like they do with deer.
http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/fasciola/biology.html
I guess I wasn't done answering you.
The drug Fasinex is not approved for general veterinary use in Canada or the US. It's only available with an emergency vet release. (Basically multiple animals are dying from flukes in a given farm). So it's a lot of paperwork which ultimately makes the drug very expensive.
I don't know. Our dollar is worth about as much as yours and we are far more socialist than your country could ever dream of. 60 years from now, the US might be where we are right now.
The drug Fasinex is not approved for general veterinary use in Canada or the US. It's only available with an emergency vet release. (Basically multiple animals are dying from flukes in a given farm). So it's a lot of paperwork which ultimately makes the drug very expensive.
I don't know. Our dollar is worth about as much as yours and we are far more socialist than your country could ever dream of. 60 years from now, the US might be where we are right now.
inyati13
Well-known member
Thanks. I will check that page. I had an MRI for diverticulitis about 4 years ago. The liver showed up and being a biologist by education, I looked at the disk they gave me of the MRI and observed soma white spots on my liver. There were only a few and as you know you can go down through an MRI about like a microtome goes through a slide preparation. I found out they were scars. Not bad and the doctor said almost anyone my age may have something similiar. I often wondered what caused them. Probably cheap whiskey. Ha Ha. Anyway, thanks for all the effort.
