Tetanus Shots

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

From what we've recently learned about calves' immune systems, a lot of what we took (and told, as vets) as 'gospel' was wrong.
It appears that they can - and do - respond to vaccines given early - even on day one; colostral antibodies don't necessarily interfere with their response to vaccines.
However, it does appear that there is a significant 'dip' in how well a calf's immune system functions between about days 3 and 7 - so...I refrain from giving vaccines or doing anything else that may further stress the little fellows during that time period. If I'm going to vaccinate or castrate/ear-tag, etc., I try to do it in the first day or so, or wait 'til they're about 10 days old.

But, what about banding at 1 day old. Will this be a problem w/out tetanus vaccination properly? We always "cut" our calves. Not sure if I want to do that myself, or try banding.

 

[Lucky_P]

Jeanne,
I've seen full-blown cases of tetanus in baby calves banded at birth; until the recent advent of banding large bull calves, baby calves were the ones I saw it in most frequently. Granted, there have been millions banded with no problems, but some contract it; it's a miniscule percentage - but if it's yours, it's big deal.
At minimum, I'd want the dam of a day-one banded calf to have been vaccinated with tetanus toxoid so that they'd hopefully receive some colostral antibodies against the tetanus toxin, but the other option on those babies would be to give a dose of tetanus antitoxin.
If you give a dose of tetanus toxoid at the time of band application, you're 'rolling the dice' that the animal will have time to respond to the toxoid and begin producing antibodies before the spores germinate and begin producing enough toxin to affect the calf.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Thanks - that's what I needed to hear.