Tips to Make Your Calf Vaccinations More Effective
By Ellen H. Brisendine
Vaccinating your calves against blackleg and other diseases common to your area is a wise practice to protect your investment in your beef cattle herd, says Dr. Harold Newcomb, cattle technical services veterinarian with Merck Animal Health. He offers suggestions on tools to use and things to consider that will help make the vaccination process more effective and easier on the humans and the cattle.
Here are a few starting suggestions.
Check with your veterinarian to find out what cattle diseases are common in your area that should be addressed through herd vaccination.
Be aware that any management practice — such as vaccination, castration, and dehorning — causes stress on the cattle and can set their performance back. Make sure you are using vaccines that cause the least amount of stress and that you handle your cattle in the most stress-free way.
Have enough vaccine on hand.
Make sure vaccines are stored and handled according to label directions.
Do not keep partial bottles of vaccine. Once the vaccine bottle has been punctured, use all of the contents or discard the remainder. If you have drawn more than one dose from a bottle of vaccine, the leftover vaccine is contaminated. Even storage in the barn refrigerator will allow any bacteria that were introduced into the bottle via the needle to grow, which can cause adverse vaccination reactions when used again days or weeks later.
Schedule vaccinations during the coolest part of the day.
Get free Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) training through the Texas Beef Quality Assurance program, a collaborative effort of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, Texas Beef Council and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension.
Why vaccinate?
Newcomb offers two views of the value of a vaccination program for your beef cattle. The first is to protect your investment. The second is to capture more of the value from your calves by participating in a group marketing program.
All calves should be vaccinated against clostridial diseases and diseases that pose a threat to the health and productivity of your herd. The common name for one such disease is blackleg.
“The organism that causes this disease lives in the soil and can be dormant for decades,” he says. “If you have drought conditions and then you get a rain, the organism can wash up out of the ground and the cattle will be exposed to it and the potential to develop the disease. Clostridial diseases are easily prevented with vaccinations, which protects your investment in your herd,” he says.
A vaccination program can help you capture more value from your calves. Several programs exist to give ranchers with a few calves the chance to combine their cattle with those from other ranches and sell in larger lots, often for a better price per head. Newcomb says these types of marketing agreements have requirements for when the calves should be vaccinated and the types of vaccinations to be administered.
“In this scenario, the vaccinations you give will benefit the next guy down the line, but you capture more value out of that calf,” he explains.
When should vaccinations be administered?
Calves typically get their first vaccinations when they are between two and three months old, Newcomb says, but always follow label directions and the advice of your veterinarian. This is also a good time to castrate bull calves and dehorn any calves that need it.
“The younger you do this in the life of that calf, the less stress there is on the animal. A young calf has a better chance of recovering from the stress than an older calf. Weaning weight performance isn’t going to be affected as negatively as it would be if you waited to castrate when the calves are older.”
Pay attention to nutrition on the days leading up to vaccination. Newcomb says, “Make sure the calves have access to minerals. A good mineral program for your herd will help you get the best response from the vaccine.
“Also pay attention to parasites. Internal parasites (worms), can actually inhibit that animal’s ability to respond to viral diseases and vaccine,” he says. The producer may want to consider deworming 2-3 weeks before vaccination to get the best immune response to vaccinations.
What to vaccinate for?
Work with a veterinarian to develop a vaccination program that is appropriate for your herd, your production goals, and your ranch location. “The veterinarian knows what diseases are of importance in your area,” Newcomb says.
Ask your veterinarian for advice or recommendations for vaccines that produce good immunity and developed with less stress to the animal in mind. “Some vaccines are kinder than others. The clostridial, or blackleg type, vaccines can be some of the harshest vaccines we give. Documented data shows that some of those vaccines will hurt feed intake for 30-plus days. However, many of the vaccines available now were developed to be less stressful for the animal than in the past.
“The veterinarian can help you choose vaccines that will produce the immunity your cattle need, but will not necessarily hurt production,” Newcomb says.
Mix enough to use, throw away leftover vaccine
Your veterinarian can advise you on how to handle and store vaccines. “Follow the directions on the bottle,” Newcomb recommends.
He suggests that ranchers with a few cattle might consider buying 10-dose presentations of vaccine and using disposable needles and syringes, instead of a 50-dose bottle of vaccine and multidose syringes. This will help limit the spread of any diseases from dirty syringes or vaccine contamination.
Also, if the producer does not use all 10 doses in a pack, it is more palatable to ranchers to throw away a few extra doses than to dispose of a half-used bottle.
“If you go into a vaccine bottle and don’t use the entire bottle, throw it away and start over with a fresh bottle,” he says.
Do not store a partially-used bottle of vaccine for the next time you work cattle, possibly weeks or months later. The bacteria introduced by the needle can flourish and contaminate the vaccine, even if it was stored in a refrigerator in the barn.
If you are using a live virus vaccine, Newcomb says, “Never mix up more than you can use in an hour. The sunlight and heat kill or damage the virus in the vaccine bottle.”
If you break for lunch, or plan to vaccinate more cattle in the cooler part of the day, store all vaccines properly.
Beef Quality Assurance training
Newcomb encourages ranchers, regardless of their herd size, to participate in Beef Quality Assurance training.
“When you become BQA certified, you are stating to the public that through this training you know how to produce beef in a safe and humane manner and you know how to take care of the health of your animals. This is very important to our end user, the consumer,” he says.
Learn about the Texas Beef Quality Assurance program at www.texasbeefquality.com.
Tips to Make Your Calf Vaccinations More Effective is excerpted from the July 2018 issue of The Cattleman magazine.