Vaccinating Calves

[inyati13]

I just bought two bred heifers from a big cattle and farming operation here in KY. This operation is the biggest vendor in the Paris Elite Heifer auction so that lays the groundwork for him knowing a lot about cattle. He recommended giving the first calves from these girls a viral shield and blackleg 7 way at one month old. Then at weaning give them two more rounds. I had understood that vaccinating that early is wasted because of the immunity provided by the colostum. But he said it helps give them some early protection. Any clarification would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

 

[Dave]

Certainly the blackleg shot at that age is a good thing. My vet advise against the killed virus at that age and had me switch to Nasalgen or Enforce 3 (also a nasal application). I have been very happy with the results of doing that. I do this at branding when the calves are from 3 to 1 months of age.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Old research always said not to vaccinate calves under 3 months of age because of the immunities from the dams colostrum. They have done an about face, and now research says they were wrong, you can give newborns vaccination shots and that they are helpful.

 

[Chris H]

We give a clostridium vax within a day of birth when it gets warm. If I don't, then we'll lose a calf or two and always the biggest, fattest calf out of the heaviest milking cow.

 

[dun]

At spring workup the calves range from a couple ofmontsolf to maybe occasioanlly a couple of days old. At that time they get wormed vaccinated for pinkeye and a shot of vIsion-7 and the cows are vacinated for pinkeye, vibrio/lepto, and bovisheld gold.
At weaning the calves get one-shot, bovisheld gold 5 and ultrabak/somubac and the cows get vl5sq

 

[Lucky_P]

Newer research suggests that there's really not much in the way of maternal antibody interference, with regard to calves responding to vaccinations.
That said, a newborn calf's immune system pretty much 'bottoms out' between days 3-7, so we don't recommend doing any vaccinations(or stressful procedures, for that matter) during that window of time.
Do calves vaccinated at 1-3 days respond? Well, we still don't know for sure - so I wait and hit 'em a little bit later; if I did vaccinate at 1-3 days of age, I'd sure want to at least get a clostridial booster in 'em sometime before 3 mos.

I do a clostridial (and lepto HB on potential replacement heifers) any time I can get my hands on the calves after they're 7-10 days of age, then booster those again 4-6 wks later(when the lepto HB booster is due).

I really like the Inforce-3 intranasal(IBR/PI3/BRSV) as the initial 'shot' in any respiratory disease vaccination program - you can come back and booster with an injectible mlv or killed vaccine 10 days or so later. I'm not sure how well the 'booster' response would be with a killed vaccine, so if I were using a killed viral product for that booster inoculation, I might still be inclined to give another dose 2-4 weeks later(according to label instructions).

We don't ordinarily do respiratory viral/pasteurella/mannheimia vaccinations until just before weaning - but have not had any respiratory issues- at least not until the last couple of weeks, when I've had two young calves sick, requiring treatment - I may have to re-think my program.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Lucky_P - thanks for the update. I had heard that for some reason around day 3 you weren't supposed to give the vaccinations - so that explains what I heard.
I've also heard good reports on the Inforce-3 - I'm using it.
I was always big on using a nasal product (usually TSV-2) for "slightly" sick calves to "kick-in" their immune response to help fight off the respiratory "bug" without using antibiotics.