Had two weanling calves get mastitis last year - weird - vet thought maybe other calves were trying to nurse on them. Anyway, all the vaccines I find for mastitis are for cows about to calve. Anyone heard of a vaccine for calves?
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pre-puberty mastitis vaccine?
- Thread starter angus9259
- Start date
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Workinonit Farm
Well-known member
angus9259":3sp0gq6r said:Anyone heard of a vaccine for calves?
No, I haven't.
A place where I worked, years ago, did have a goat get mastitis. This goat had never been pregnant, nor was she with any type of animal that would try to suck. :???: Very odd.
Katherine
Workinonit Farm":tato05ov said:angus9259":tato05ov said:Anyone heard of a vaccine for calves?
No, I haven't.
A place where I worked, years ago, did have a goat get mastitis. This goat had never been pregnant, nor was she with any type of animal that would try to suck. :???: Very odd.
Katherine
"very odd" - that's what my vet said. and I had TWO at the same time
Workinonit Farm
Well-known member
angus9259":1q93vhrq said:"very odd" - that's what my vet said. and I had TWO at the same time
That is odd. I've never known of any pre-pubescent heifers getting mastitis. But then again, I'd never dealt with a non-lactating----not pregnant goat getting mastitis either.
I guess there's a first for everything.
Is it clearing up?
Katherine
Workinonit Farm":255ri2ho said:Is it clearing up?
Katherine
Not sure . . . I'll have to check with the feedlot :lol:
Too bad, the were going to be retainers, but the vet said they'd definitely lose the one quarter and it could spread to others. Cut my losses. I'm looking for a vaccine to give this year's heifers so it doesn't happen again. Vet said they'd feed out just fine - feedyard guy thought so too. Off they went.
Lucky_P
Well-known member
Doubtful that the mastitis vaccines that are available for use in dairy cattle are gonna help you much, if at all.
Staph aureus vaccines are used in herds that have a problem with coagulase+ Staph mastitis, and while they don't necessarily prevent infection, they do help diminish the increased somatic cell counts(SCC) that mastitic cows have - and help keep bulk milk SCC below the 'cut-off' level, where the milk processor will refuse to take the milk.
The E.coli J-5 vaccine is used to minimize death loss due to coliform mastitis - those cows that contract coliform mastitis 'crash and burn' - they may be fine at one milking, and near death before the next one. It's a milking management and environmental problem, but vaccination may make economic sense in a dairy setting.
Neither of these problems are likely to be the cause of pre-pubertal mastitis in heifers; those cases may be due to another heifer sucking - or sometimes self-sucking, or due to horn flies feeding/biting on teat ends and introducing bacteria (probably not coag+ Staph or coliforms) into the teat canal.
I had one first-calf heifer calve out with one 'blind' quarter this year, but she's done a good job with her calf, and she'll get to stay.
Had a 5-yr old cow with one big, ugly front teat -very different from the other three - calve out last spring, and when I got her up to milk that thing out, it turned out that it was the only teat that didn't have a teat canal completely filled with scar tissue. Never could get the calf to suck that big ugly thing. Fortunately for him, we had another cow lose a calf to scours about the same time, and we grafted him onto the other cow and sent the one-titted cow to the salebarn - where I instructed the folks that she was to go for slaughter only.
Sometimes things just happen. I don't think vaccinating for mastitis is gonna help you; I wouldn't do it in my beef herd.
Staph aureus vaccines are used in herds that have a problem with coagulase+ Staph mastitis, and while they don't necessarily prevent infection, they do help diminish the increased somatic cell counts(SCC) that mastitic cows have - and help keep bulk milk SCC below the 'cut-off' level, where the milk processor will refuse to take the milk.
The E.coli J-5 vaccine is used to minimize death loss due to coliform mastitis - those cows that contract coliform mastitis 'crash and burn' - they may be fine at one milking, and near death before the next one. It's a milking management and environmental problem, but vaccination may make economic sense in a dairy setting.
Neither of these problems are likely to be the cause of pre-pubertal mastitis in heifers; those cases may be due to another heifer sucking - or sometimes self-sucking, or due to horn flies feeding/biting on teat ends and introducing bacteria (probably not coag+ Staph or coliforms) into the teat canal.
I had one first-calf heifer calve out with one 'blind' quarter this year, but she's done a good job with her calf, and she'll get to stay.
Had a 5-yr old cow with one big, ugly front teat -very different from the other three - calve out last spring, and when I got her up to milk that thing out, it turned out that it was the only teat that didn't have a teat canal completely filled with scar tissue. Never could get the calf to suck that big ugly thing. Fortunately for him, we had another cow lose a calf to scours about the same time, and we grafted him onto the other cow and sent the one-titted cow to the salebarn - where I instructed the folks that she was to go for slaughter only.
Sometimes things just happen. I don't think vaccinating for mastitis is gonna help you; I wouldn't do it in my beef herd.
