Expired Meds

[farmerjan]

@kenny thomas is right... the Va Cattlemen's assoc requires certain vaccines for the cattle to qualify for their sales... they market them in truck and trailer lots... have a protocol to follow to be able to sell at their consigned sales. That is fine, that is what they promote and as an assoc, they guarantee the cattle as far as vaccines, and open heifers and all that... It was promoted as helping the "small farmer" with only a few animals, to get in on the better prices that farmers get with a larger "group" of cattle. So if you have 10 cows and their calves and 2 are 400 lbs and 3 are 500 lbs and 2 are 600 lbs... because you maybe don't have a defined calving window.... and the calves are all nice ones... you can benefit from the larger "lots" that are sold. The county south of here has had a good name for doing this for their farmers for several years, and it has "opened up" to our county also...
One of their requirements is certain MLV be used to qualify... we did it one time, wound up with some problems with other calves, and although the ones we did, did qualify for the sale, we did not see the increased price we hoped for... and we now find that we do better by making up groups and selling them ourselves.. and do so sometimes by buying other singles for discounted prices and then putting together weaned and vacc groups of our own cattle and some bought ones. We wean and vacc and "pre-conditon" for a minimum of 45 days and usually 60 or more...
Like you market your steers in a manner that works for you, we have found a way to make our own marketing "style" work for us... and it does not include MLV in part so that we do not have to ever worry about any contact between cattle, and bred cows losing calves or anything like that.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I am a strong believer of MLV ....BUT.. you sure need to keep tract of all cattle.

 

[SBMF 2015]

I try to keep a few doses of ViraShield around just in case I run out of vaccine with only one or two calves left to vaccinate. Otherwise everything gets MLV.
Once you get a herd on the MLV program it's easy and cheaper.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I have a Jan/Feb and Sept/Oct calving. I always worked our cows prior to the start of breeding season. But, then they warned you needed to vaccinate w/ MLV at least 30 days prior to breeding. That was sometimes difficult. So, I gave MLV in spring AND fall to all cattle. The following year, the spring group got their MLV in the fall and the fall group got their MLV in the spring. Works great now that I got everything switched over.
My calves get MLV at 3 & 4 months of age then heifers get it again about a month after weaning.