Bvd & Leptospirosis

dodo mommy

hi all just wondering should the stock bull be dosed for lepto & bvd?

orm0nd

yes

joejobrien

absolutely

greysides

Yes.

mahoney_j

Definetly

tomieen jones

greysides wrote: »

Yes.

it would be advised! I don't ! I'm like if i'm vaccinating for lepto bvd black leg pneumonia and what ever else is advised I'd be broke! I'll take my chances keeping a closed herd ! ,

mahoney_j

tomieen jones wrote: »

it would be advised! I don't ! I'm like if i'm vaccinating for lepto bvd black leg pneumonia and what ever else is advised I'd be broke! I'll take my chances keeping a closed herd ! ,

If u don't vaccinate for above and a few more you may go broke quicker if u ever happen to be hit with one of them.closed herd is fine but what about wildlife and your neighbours stock ????

greysides

tomieen jones wrote: »

it would be advised! I don't ! I'm like if i'm vaccinating for lepto bvd black leg pneumonia and what ever else is advised I'd be broke! I'll take my chances keeping a closed herd ! ,

I'm assuming the rest of the herd is being vaccinated and the question is whether the stock bull should be included too. To which the answer is 'yes'.

tomieen jones

mahoney_j wrote: »

If u don't vaccinate for above and a few more you may go broke quicker if u ever happen to be hit with one of them.closed herd is fine but what about wildlife and your neighbours stock ????

quite simply I choose to and have taken this risk for the last 15 years! I do have fatalities! One still born and one weanling last year
I have 38 suckler cows and work full time! If I get an out break I will then close the stable door! It's a risk but I believe that a healthy well balanced herd can fight allot of these diseases once they have ample supply of minerals and vitamins and not over stocked! copper I find is a key mineral aiding health! Just my practice! Couldn't advise it tho

tomieen jones

greysides wrote: »

I'm assuming the rest of the herd is being vaccinated and the question is whether the stock bull should be included too. To which the answer is 'yes'.

Sorry that does read totally different!!! answer seems obvious in that case

greysides

tomieen jones wrote: »

I'm like if i'm vaccinating for lepto bvd black leg pneumonia and what ever else is advised I'd be broke! I'll take my chances keeping a closed herd ! ,

Most people vaccinate for diseases they've encountered or are at high risk of encountering. No one could be expected to vaccinate for everything. If you are depending on biosecurity the you will need to be exact.

Most people would be using a combination of the two.


Do you have disinfectant mats out? Disinfectant boot washes for visitors? Do you spread your own slurry? Presumably you don't buy in. Maybe except a bull, which you keep in quarantine for a while? Ever have seagulls around the feed troughs? Do pregnant cows have access to a stream? Is there nose-to-nose contact across bounds ditches? Do stock ever break in, or out?

A closed herd is a good idea but it's hard for it to be 100%.

tomieen jones

greysides wrote: »

Most people vaccinate for diseases they've encountered or are at high risk of encountering. No one could be expected to vaccinate for everything. If you are depending on biosecurity the you will need to be exact.

Most people would be using a combination of the two.


Do you have disinfectant mats out? Disinfectant boot washes for visitors? Do you spread your own slurry? Presumably you don't buy in. Maybe except a bull, which you keep in quarantine for a while? Ever have seagulls around the feed troughs? Do pregnant cows have access to a stream? Is there nose-to-nose contact across bounds ditches? Do stock ever break in, or out?

A closed herd is a good idea but it's hard for it to be 100%.

Ah here! do I start disinfecting the bought in nuts as well! There is all those things you listed ! Still does not mean I need to vaccinate! My kids mix with other kids! I don't vaccinate they are healthy!!!

tomieen jones

There is an assumption that Farmers who don't vaccinate their stock are not at the races

greysides

I'm not having a go at you Tomieen. I'm pointing out that it's a risk analysis. You weigh up all the risks and make your decision.

That list may seem preposterous but it's not really.

Disinfecting boots and tyres was deemed important during Foot and Mouth as the virus could be carried thus but it's not the only virus that will spread that way. Rotavirus and Coronavirus will. Parvo in dogs is thought to have come here from the US on the soles of shoes.

A slurry spreader is surely a 'weapon of mass destruction'. Are they washed out, never mind disinfected, before they come to you? Salmonella, BVD and TB may be spread by them. Probably others too.... Rotavirus, Coronavirus etc.

Quarantining a bought in animal (bull) away from the home herd is standard for closed herds. The bull could be incubating a disease picked up shortly before leaving or in-transit. IBR.

Seagulls will spread salmonella and campylobacteriosis.

A stream may carry lepto, brucellosis.

Nose-to-nose.. respiratory viruses and BVD virus.


The other side of a closed herd with no pathogens is no endemic 'herd immunity'. Which leaves animals open to infection and makes for a high incidence of more severe effects should a pathogen enter.


Realistically, unless you are the sole farmer on an island it would be hard to be completely sure of a closed herd being safe. That's why most thread a middle path.

I'm not saying you should vaccinate for everything or indeed anything but to keep an open mind about it.

greysides

tomieen jones wrote: »

There is an assumption that Farmers who don't vaccinate their stock are not at the races

I hopefully have addressed that in the previous post.

Economically it would be direly expensive to vaccinate for everything but disease outbreaks can be breaking too.


A man in a remote location is the UK, no neighbours with animals for miles, had a kind passer-by leave some animals found on the road into a field of his containing in-calf heifers. The 'visiting' animals had been chased on the road and had travelled 7 miles from their origin. They included one or more BVD carriers. Most of his in-calf heifers aborted and the living calves/heifers brought BVD back to the home herd. Over a number of years (5-7, I think) he lost hundreds of animals from the effects of BVD coming into a totally naive herd. He eventually sold out the herd.

This is surely an unlucky story, odds of it happening being like winning the lottery, but it is a true story as best I remember it.

tanko

tomieen jones wrote: »

There is an assumption that Farmers who don't vaccinate their stock are not at the races

Don't think anyone said that. I never vaccinated weanlings for pnuemonia, then four years ago had an outbreak of it in freshly weaned calves which cost a fair bit of money to sort out. I vaccinate for it every year now and consider it money well spent.

limo_100

lads did any of use tag any of your cows to see if they had bvd kind of a sample check??

tomieen jones

sorry if i came across defensive
i do take whats said on board! i did enquire from my vet a few years back should i be vaccinating a few years back ! his response was for what ? i couldnt answer and his advise was not to unless symtoms started to present itself ! which i know you will say is too late then ! his advise was concentrate on the health of the herd and test for mineral defiencies on the land ! treat the land that feeds your stock was his advise and i must say i have way better stock today because of it ! a healthy herd will stand a better chance of fighting of disease at an early stage of infection

dh1985

limo_100 wrote: »

lads did any of use tag any of your cows to see if they had bvd kind of a sample check??

Have everything tagged here. Due to the fact they were all bought in as heifers over the last few years, so they were tested before they got in contact with rest of cows. If the calves off those cows dont have bvd (which you should know from the compulsory tagging) the cows cant be persistently infected either. Also I led to believe that if cattle are older than three years or so they shouldn't have it because it would likely have them killed before then. Botttom line is if your calves are clear then your cows are good too.

Deepsouthwest

greysides wrote: »

I'm not having a go at you Tomieen. I'm pointing out that it's a risk analysis. You weigh up all the risks and make your decision.

That list may seem preposterous but it's not really.

Disinfecting boots and tyres was deemed important during Foot and Mouth as the virus could be carried thus but it's not the only virus that will spread that way. Rotavirus and Coronavirus will. Parvo in dogs is thought to have come here from the US on the soles of shoes.

A slurry spreader is surely a 'weapon of mass destruction'. Are they washed out, never mind disinfected, before they come to you? Salmonella, BVD and TB may be spread by them. Probably others too.... Rotavirus, Coronavirus etc.

Quarantining a bought in animal (bull) away from the home herd is standard for closed herds. The bull could be incubating a disease picked up shortly before leaving or in-transit. IBR.

Seagulls will spread salmonella and campylobacteriosis.

A stream may carry lepto, brucellosis.

Nose-to-nose.. respiratory viruses and BVD virus.


The other side of a closed herd with no pathogens is no endemic 'herd immunity'. Which leaves animals open to infection and makes for a high incidence of more severe effects should a pathogen enter.


Realistically, unless you are the sole farmer on an island it would be hard to be completely sure of a closed herd being safe. That's why most thread a middle path.

I'm not saying you should vaccinate for everything or indeed anything but to keep an open mind about it.

Greysides, I'm just wondering what's ur opinion on lepto vaccination. Have never had an issue with it, bulk milk tests generally show to be v low as well, and local vet says he's never come across a case of it in 15 yrs of practice in this area. However on most experts advice that with young children here, and another on the way, and a student here every spring I now have the vaccine in the fridge and plan on starting vaccinating for it this yr. Am I right or wrong?

greysides

DSW, I think you're right. In a situation like yours it's nearly a form of insurance. Another way to look at is that with negligible exposure were you to buy in a carrier you could have a large outbreak as you'd have no herd immunity built up. The zoonotic implications mean that if a farmer asks me about it at all, he'll probably end up vaccinating. What I would suggest to him to do is to take a few bloods to do a 'survey' of his herd. I'd be hoping for a clear indication from the results as to whether to vaccinate, or not. Most of the time at least one animal will show up some degree of exposure and once that's there, given the human health risk, I would not be able to recommend not to vaccinate.

Some years ago a different approach was taken. A large proportion of the herd would be sampled and only an indication of recent, active transmission would merit a vaccination programme. Nowadays with the vaccine being relatively cheaper and people both more litigious and more informed a different approach is sensible.