[pakalasa]

As regards the health of young calves, I think the biggest single thing you can do is to make sure the newborn calf gets his belly full of colostrum as soon as you can. Even if that means wrestling with a newborn at 4 in the morning. I'm 6 years suckling now and, touch wood, I have never had a sick calf. Apart from luck, I put a lot of it down to this.

[Muckit]

I have alot to learn in the area of animal health. I would find it v beneficial if posts on this topic were as detailed as possible.

Ie...

• What you dose/vaccinate for?
• What age/type animals you dose?
• What products you use/used and found good/bad
• When?
• How do you measure the results/success of your dosing/vaccination regime or is it more piece of mind?

[jerdee]

i do all breeding stock and stock bull plus teaser for bvd .i did a blood test two years ago all clear but still vaccine yearly .lepto before calving and copper bullets to all females.
calves tribavax on turn out .
fluke albex pouron and flukiver .

since getting into this programme herd health has greatly improved.

many thanks to my vets advise.

[reilig]

Originally Posted by LivInt20

I haven't heard of the 8 in 1 vaccine before. What does it cover? Price? When to administer, etc?

We Covexin 8 just as we are letting the younger animals out to grass. it costs just over €1 each. It covers 7-way blackleg (Pulpy kidney, Brazy, Struck, Blacks Disease, Bacterial Red Water, Tetanus, Enterotoxemia, Post parturian Gangerene) plus tetanus.

[49801]

Originally Posted by reilig

Lets talk about herd Health and vaccination programmes this week. But feel free to go back on the older topics if someone has something to add.

Personally, the big one for us is BVD this year. We have joined the BVD testing scheme this year and we have been vaccinating against BVD for the last 5 years with a much improved heard health visible as a result. We don't vaccinate for IBR or anything else but we have a pretty regular dosing programme for Fluke and worms and we do give a few boluses for minerals and vitamins throughout the year. We also do all of the younger animals with an 8 in 1 vaccine.

What about you?

Can someone else do the topic for next week, on monday as i am away all next week!

Curious.... if you are vaccinating for BVD you wont getva positive result on the tissue tags... is it possible you still have bvd in the herd but it is not showing up in the tissue tests as the calves are protected?

I suspected bvd in our herd so I tissue tested this year and not one positive result. Now I know this not conclusive until the end of year 3.
We also have restarted our lepto vaccination program.
We've always vaccinated for blackleg (usually only the one dose though)

[jerdee]

On my bvd test some cows showed up positive for bvd.But on further incubation readings it was the vaccine that caused the low reading.

anybody test for johnnes ?

[reilig]

Originally Posted by 49801

Curious.... if you are vaccinating for BVD you wont getva positive result on the tissue tags... is it possible you still have bvd in the herd but it is not showing up in the tissue tests as the calves are protected?

I suspected bvd in our herd so I tissue tested this year and not one positive result. Now I know this not conclusive until the end of year 3.
We also have restarted our lepto vaccination program.
We've always vaccinated for blackleg (usually only the one dose though)

From the information that i got, vaccinating for BVD does not guarantee that a Foetus will be free from BVD. It just strengthens the immune system of the Foetus and reduces the chances of it contracting BVD at the risk months (3 to 5 months in the womb).

[reilig]

Originally Posted by jerdee

On my bvd test some cows showed up positive for bvd.But on further incubation readings it was the vaccine that caused the low reading.

Is there much point in testing cows for BVD? They can't contract it - only calves in the womb can contract it. Only .025% of calves born with BVD will live beyond 20 months - most will die after weining when they stop getting antibodies from cows milk. To me, testing animals with that small of risk for BVD is a waste of money.

[49801]

Originally Posted by reilig

Is there much point in testing cows for BVD? They can't contract it - only calves in the womb can contract it. Only .025% of calves born with BVD will live beyond 20 months - most will die after weining when they stop getting antibodies from cows milk. To me, testing animals with that small of risk for BVD is a waste of money.

why are you joined up to tissue test for bvd then?
I personally would not like to wait that long to find out it was bvd all the while spreading the virus.

[jerdee]

my oldest cow is 01 and i only being vaccinating for five years and keeping replacements .its the overall herd health i suppose.

[reilig]

Originally Posted by 49801

why are you joined up to tissue test for bvd then?
I personally would not like to wait that long to find out it was bvd all the while spreading the virus.

Cows don't spread the virus. You can be fairly confident that if you have a cow, she doesn't have BVD. BVD tends to kill off the animal before 24 months - its extremely rare that you will have an animal over 24 months with bvd.

I'm tissue testing the calves because they are the most likely to have BVD. This is because the only place that they can contract BVD is in the womb between month 3 and months 5 of the pregnancy. The mother comes in contact with a PI or a TI and passes this infection onto the foetus of the calf. The main point here is that an animal can only become infected while inside the womb - so cows are very low risk for having BVD. Therefore, there is not much point in testing them. Its better to test the calves as they are being born and then remove the PI's so that they don't spread BVD to unborn calves as they mix through the herd.

[Muckit]

There is a discussion on another thread about this, but thought I'd ask here as know nothing about vaccinating for it. We never had it Thank God.....

• Is it a jab under the skin you give as a vaccine? where?
• Behind the front shoulder or in the neck or where?
• What's vaccine do you use? what a ml per cwt?

Thanks

Muckit

[redzerologhlen]

Originally Posted by Muckit

There is a discussion on another thread about this, but thought I'd ask here as know nothing about vaccinating for it. We never had it Thank God.....

• Is it a jab under the skin you give as a vaccine? where?
• Behind the front shoulder or in the neck or where?
• What's vaccine do you use? what a ml per cwt?

Thanks

Muckit

2cc per animal and a repeat dose of 2cc 6 weeks later regardless of weight. Under the skin, I normally do it around their shoulder. I use tribovax t. Its a bit more expensive than normal blackleg vaccine but still cheap and covers a good few things.

[jay gatsby]

Would I be right in saying then that in the following situation you have almost zero chance of getting BVD.

All sucklers
Buy replacements all over 24 months and served with AI
Stock bull bought at 24 months or all AI
Young stock sold at 9 months
Nothing else bought in or kept beyond weanling stage.

Is there any way for the disease to enter this herd other than a neighbour's stock?

[Charlie Charolais]

Originally Posted by reilig

We don't vaccinate for IBR

Suckler lads - pls vaccinate for IBR!
We are drystock farming & buy weanlings in - the big issue we have is respiratory problems;
I think the stress of weaning/mart/transport brings on the problems & we are chasing after it then
Prevention would definitely be better than cure in this case!