vaccinating cattle

[tmaygspeara]

Hello, i was interested in learning more about vaccinating my cattle. I had a post early last week about cost of rasing cattle, and a i got a reply saying that i should start vaccinating my cattle because i dont vaccinate. My question is if i start to vaccinate, how would i go about implementing this, what are some good brands of vaccination, and also what are some does and dont's

 

[Running Arrow Bill]

Check with your local large animal Vet for procedures. Also, which vaccinations are used in your area. Brucellosis (Vet does) is one of biggies.

You should also have a de-worming program.

If you've never vaccinated, get your Vet to demonstrate.

You also need facilities to restrain the animal for vaccinating.

 

[msscamp]

This is a question for your vet, and/or your mentor (provided he/she lives in the same area you do). There are as many vaccinations out there as there are cattlemen/women, but all of them are not necessarily needed for your particular region. Assuming it is not required by state law, if you have an abundance of elk (no idea of how far they roam) or deer in your local area, I would make sure that Brucellosis was something I vaccinated for because they can infect your herd. As far as how you implement a health program - talk to your vet, decide what you're going to use (killed vs modified live), decide what the appropriate time to vaccinate is (killed vaccines can be given anytime, but that is not the case for MLV), find out when your heel fly season is so you know when to Warbex, run them through the chute and vaccinate/Warbex/worm when and as needed. Your vet should be able to show you how to do it or, if you prefer, he/she can vaccinate your cattle for you until you gain a little more experience and are comfortable with performing the procedures yourself.

PS I am not a trusting sort of person - so before I gave this kind of trust to a mentor, I would take a very long, very hard look at his/her cattle - as well as what kind of health problems, if any, he/she was dealing with. Along the same lines - before I settled on a vet, I would talk to as many people as I possibly could - including the vet's, and get references. Those talks would include ALL of the vets in at least a 30 mile radius (yes, I will haul my animals for quality service), which ones they had had dealings with, which ones they preferred (and why), as well as which ones they avoided (and why).

 

[rockridgecattle]

i agree, talk to your vet. He/she can help to tailor a plan to suit your operation.
i do know ML is better than killed. first time ML should be done on open cows pre breeding with FP.
Ask your vet lots of questions. they are a big help

 

[tmaygspeara]

another question, since we have never Vaccinated cattle, is there a chance the medicine could have a adverse affect on our cattle and bring something into the herd that we dont want. for example could vaccinating cause other problem that we dont already have. I know it is suppose to help, but can it have side affects that could cause birthing problems or milking problems

 

[Brandonm2]

It seems like there are more nasty things floating around out there now than there was 20 years ago. BVD type II is the 500 pound gorilla standing in the room now. Blackleg is always a clear and present danger and the reproductive disease like lepto and vibrio are common throughout cattle country. The benefits of improving production and providing some insurance against disaster far outweigh the possible side affects. Contact a large animal vet or your local extension agent about setting up a whole herd vaccination plan for your cattle. Some stuff available over the counter should not be used in pregnant cattle, some can not even be used on calves nursing pregnant cattle, I would definitely get HELP from a legitimate expert to set up what you need to be shooting in your area.

Here is a link to one pharmaceutical companys recommended beef cow herd health plan. Use with a grain of salt because they are trying to sell THEIR products not somebody elses.

http://www.pfizerah.com/health.asp?coun ... ype=3&sec=

 

[rockridgecattle]

Some of the things you could see are:

1. Anaphalatic shock. Always have epinephrine on hand. Out of 7 years doing this we had one case this year. Not bad I would say.

2. Best to do the cows pre breeding. This would prevent most calf problems. But to do this you have to have a defined breeding/calving season. We do our cows in May and turn the bulls out in June three weeks later then we pull the bulls end of August. Don't forget the bulls, and the calves as well. We have had better wean weights with the calves from vaccinating them and worming them.

3. This is a long answer so bear with me. If you do the cows pre breeding you minimize the problem of PI calves. these are calves who have the disease and could show signs during stress or they could show no signs and be carriers and shed the disease as long as they live spreading it to others.
I asked our vet and she said that if it manifests in a vaccinated animal it was already there and the ML vaccine just exasperated the problem. Same as with the calves. If they already have the disease and they are ML vaccinated it brings it out. But does not cause the disease.

In our expereince, before we started the program, we had about, out of 50 cows, 2-3 sometimes 4 open cows, 5-6 late (late being longer than 6 weeks and upto 5 months late) and problably about 5 calves dead by weaning time, no reason why. Some were dead shortly after calving and some got pnemonia on pasture. We had just come to the farm to work with my husband's family. Once we started a program we noticed a significat drop in open cows, late calvers and the death rate dropped to zero, unless we made a stupid mistake calving. No more pasture pnemonia. It worked for us.

My father in law was not happy we wanted to do this. Finally the auctioneer came out to see the animals. It happened when we were blacklegging the calves. He asked if we did the IBR....thing and we said no. He suggested we should do it and we said talk to the boss. Once that happened he agreed to the killed vaccine. He was not ready to go ML. He "heard" to many horror stories. Once we bought and owned more than 50% of the herd, we did the ML. We are glad we did it.

But again talk to your vet and again ask these questions. He /She will have better answers that I and the vet can set you up on a program taylored to your operation.

Remember though, nothing is 100% fool proof!
RR

 

[msscamp]

another question, since we have never Vaccinated cattle, is there a chance the medicine could have a adverse affect on our cattle and bring something into the herd that we dont want. for example could vaccinating cause other problem that we dont already have. I know it is suppose to help, but can it have side affects that could cause birthing problems or milking problems

Another question for your vet. Killed vaccines are usually safe, MLV can cause problems - depending on your particular set of circumstances, situation. I have never seen MLV bring in a disease to an otherwise disease free herd. Under certain circumstances, MLV can cause abortions - so talk to your vet about your particular situation/set of circumstances before you decide on a vaccination protocal.