At this time of year, it is a good idea to start thinking about your vaccination programme, as we are fast approaching the pre-housing period.
Agriland visited the MSD tent at the National Ploughing Championships and spoke to veterinarian, Emma Sargent, who has a special interest in ruminant animal health, dairy herd health and calf rearing.
Sargent urged farmers to ensure they have a plan in place for respiratory vaccines, as well as a plan to combat pneumonia.
Vaccination for cows
Sargent said that proper protocol is essential, particularly for young stock who will be coming into their first housing, in order to protect them against pneumonia and infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR).
Make sure to get a booster of your pneumonia vaccine in the pre-housing period to cover you across your period of housing, depending on your vaccination plan up to this point.
“From our range, with the Bovipast vaccination, you always want to give that booster pre-risk, and the risk at this time of year is housing.
“So, you want to make sure that you give that in one month, before the cows are housed to ensure full protection,” Sargent added.
When it comes to IBR, depending whether you’ve given a live vaccine into the muscle, it will give six months of protection, according the MSD vet.
For adult cows, most farmers would typically be on a would be on a programme where they are vaccinating in July and December every six months for IBR and pneumonia.
Depending whether your farm is at risk, a salmonella vaccine is going to come into play also. You should be giving a booster of the vaccine, six weeks pre-risk, with the highest risk normally coming in November, according to Sargent.
For pre-calving cows, you should aim to protect against cryptosporidiosis, which is a two-shot course in the first year, four weeks apart, given in the three to 12-week window pre calving.
Calf protection
If you’ve given an IBR vaccine to calves at three-months-of-age, usually that will protect you right through to December.
In terms of calf scour vaccines, Sargent talked about protecting calves against cryptosporidiosis, which is essential as we enter into the calving season for autumn calving herds.
“You’re vaccinating the cow to boost immunity in your colostrum and provide antibodies to the calf in the colostrum. So, it is really important to have your first feed of beestings right,” she outlined.
High quality colostrum is the best vaccination for any calves, and a brix refractometer should be used to make sure the quality is optimum.
Taking the ‘3-2-1’ rule, the calf needs at least 3L of milk or 10% of the body weight of the calf in the first two hours and first milking colostrum only.
Sargent said this is where all of your protection is going to be, along with feeding transition milk for at least the first five days of life.
It is also important to protect against rotavirus coronavirus and E. coli. This is a one-shot course that is given in the three to 12-week window pre-calving.