Housing time for cattle provides farmers with a great opportunity to set their herd up for a productive winter, by providing a strategic supplementation regime to boost not only the animals’ immunity, but increase the response to any future vaccinations.
According to the All-Island Animal Disease Surveillance Report, respiratory infections are the most commonly diagnosed conditions on post-mortems of calves aged 1-5 months and weanlings aged 6-12 months, with 34% and 32% prevalence reported respectively.
Even if the cattle survive, bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is still of huge economic importance, with the cost of non-fatal production losses to the EU cattle industry amounting to €576 million annually.
Along with improvements in biosecurity, vaccination has proven to be a corner stone of preventing major pathogens from causing respiratory disease outbreaks in Irish herds.
Studies have shown the positive impact of injectable trace mineral supplementation concurrently with vaccination, as trace minerals such as Zinc (Zn), Manganese (Mn), Copper (Cu), and Selenium (Se) are essential for optimal immune function.
Daily oral trace mineral supply is essential to meet maintenance requirements in cattle but at high demand periods, like weaning or vaccination, intake can fall in response to stress. Consequently, clinical or subclinical deficiency can develop – despite feeding a well-formulated diet.
Trace minerals have poor intestinal absorption regardless of the source. This poor oral absorption is further reduced by antagonists such as sulphur, molybdenum, calcium and iron, or binding to undigested feed particles.
Strategic Injectable Trace Mineral (ITM) supplementation bypasses the harsh rumen environment, rapidly raising systemic trace mineral levels in cattle within 8-10 hours, and after 24 hours trace mineral concentrations in the storage organs like the liver are at raised concentrations.
To complete a form and get a free consultation from Virbac on the benefits of injectable trace mineral top up, click here.
Strategic supplementation
Studies from leading universities have demonstrated the benefits of strategic trace mineral supplementation, and the results of these studies reinforce how injectable supplements could benefit cattle by enhancing immune responses to vaccinations.
Recent research from the University of Georgia demonstrated how an injectable trace mineral supplement administered concurrently with vaccination, not only enhanced response to vaccines, but also improved vaccinated cattle’s performance following a disease challenge.
In this study, three groups of calves were challenged intranasally with the live bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) virus. After being exposed to a BVD virus challenge, calves that were treated with injectable trace minerals concurrently with vaccination (G1) had lower health scores (indicating less disease) than vaccinated calves or unvaccinated calves (G2 and G3, respectively).
Furthermore, in the days following the BVD virus challenge, the supplemented calves had improved average daily gain (Figure 1) compared to the other two groups.
On top of that, results of a study presented at the 2019 Bovine Respiratory Disease Symposium demonstrated first-hand, the effect of supporting a vaccine with an ITM supplement.
A batch of calves was randomly split into three groups; two groups were vaccinated against BVD and respiratory disease whilst the third group remained unvaccinated. Of the two vaccinated groups, one was supplemented with ITM at the time of vaccination, whilst the second group received saline.
All three groups of calves were later exposed to the live BVD virus and IBR virus. ITM calves had lower endoscopy scores (milder inflammation and mucosal damage) after virus challenge than vaccinated + saline, and unvaccinated groups.
By Roberto A. Palomares, DVM, MS, PhD, DACT, College of Veterinary Medicine (The University of Georgia)
The use of injectable trace minerals has beneficial effects on the immune response and protection elicited by vaccination against respiratory pathogens.
Ensure your herd is getting the most out of your vaccination protocol; ask your vet how Injectable Trace Mineral supplementation could enhance immunity in your herd.
To complete a form and get a free consultation from Virbac on the benefits of injectable trace mineral top up, click here.
References available on request.
