Clostridium in calves

Help Support CattleToday:

cowgirl_jenna

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 1, 2013
Messages
314
Reaction score
0
Location
WI
In the last two calving seasons, we have had trouble with clostridium in some of our new born calves. We give the bovine ecolizer+C20 and first defense at birth, but still have some cases. This year, I am hoping to vaccinate our cow herd with Gaurdian from merk. The cows start calving the end of march. They have not been vaccinated previously, so we need to do the booster as well. Hoping to get the first dose done in the next week. Would of done it sooner, but the weather has been terrible. Am I getting too late? Do any of you use gaurdian? It seems it covers more clostridium preferigens, thus why I am going with it. any advice would be great, I'll do anything to overcome this clostridium crap!!
 
jenna,
You can only do what you can do this year, but in the future, keep in mind that colostral antibody levels are pretty well 'set' by 5 weeks before calving. So... you want to do any vaccinations/boosters early enough that the dam will have had time to respond and have maximized her ability to produce those antibodies by that time. So...ideally, I'd want any vacc/boosters to be given no later than 8 wks prior to calving.

That said, there's also benefit - for beef calves - from continued production of antibodies(IgA) in the dam's milk, which can act as sort of an 'antiseptic paint' for the GI tract of that calf - and in some cases, such as with antibodies against rota/coronaviruses, the continued production of anti-corona or anti-rotavirus antibodies in milk for the first month or so is more important than the presence of those antibodies in colostrum, because for those two viruses, absorbed colostral antibodies circulating in the blood provide no protection against infection and disease.

The two products you're currently using are not intended to have any specific effect against Clostridium.
 
Thanks for the reply, I meant to say they start calving the end of April, so I should be ok on time yet if I get my butt in gear this week.
 
Well, everyone got vaccinated last Saturday with gaurdian. It went pretty well, the weather was descent for the most part. I'm always afraid of the cattle getting sweat when working them in cold weather, but all seem just fine. I did something funny, maybe stupid though. My un-bred replacement heifers(5 of them) are with the cow herd . I vaccinated them too. If this is wrong/dumb thinking, I'll say I did it as a mistake LOL. I did it on purpose though. Here's why. Since I need to booster the cows again since this is the first year, I figured if I vaccinate the heifers twice too, next year I will only have to do everyone once. (I know I'll get no benefit this year for doing the heifers and in the long run am wasting 1 dose basically). But, now next season I can do the "bred" herd once. I hate working the cows in the winter, ice,cold,snow ect. Sooo, in my mind this was a good idea, but maybe not. If they were not in the same group and not already coming thru the chute, I prob wouldn't of. Either way, not out much, but more importunately do say there is some logic here so my husband doesn't think I'm a complete ditz :) Oh, and the 2 cows I was questioning being bred, I checked them and I def. felt a calf in there :D
thanx, Jenna
 
Hello Jenna,

Another thing that has helped ranchers around here with the clostridium issues is giving the baby calves 1 cc of Multi Min when you are tagging or giving your C/D vaccination. These producers are also giving the Guardian pre Calving and some are even giving the multi min to the cows pre calving and not having to give to the calves. Just thought I would pass that around to you! The multi min has helped our herd out in many ways. We give it to the calves at branding time along with our replacement heifers pre breeding and it has helped on our AI conception. Hope you are having a good season
 
Another thing that has helped ranchers around here with the clostridium issues is giving the baby calves 1 cc of Multi Min when you are tagging or giving your C/D vaccination.

Thanks for the info everyone!. I know some producers around me are using the multi-min 90 too, mostly pre-AI season. I've been looking at incorporating it into our herd schedule as well, and think I will try giving it to the newborn calves to start out with.
Jenna
 

Latest posts

Top