Select Sires

Vaccinations for Diseases that Affect Reproduction (Part Two)
Transcript of Select Sires' Reproductive Moment Program
on DairyLine Radio Which Aired May 12, 2005
With Ray Nebel,
Extension Specialist and Professor of Reproductive Management,
Virginia Tech

Ray, this week we continue our discussion about vaccination programs for protection against diseases that affect reproduction.

The vaccination should be set out with your veterinarian. Your veterinarian is your herd health professional. Vaccines start as early as three months of age for BVD and IBR, and at six months of age we have an IBR, BVD, and other diseases that we normally vaccinate for: pasteurellosis, pneumonia, and some Haemophilus somus. But, it is not until right before we start breeding in replacement heifers that we want to go into the Lepto strains that we looked at, as well as the Vibrio and the Trichomonas strains. Then, in the lactating herd, again with your veterinarian, we would set up a vaccination protocol that would be around calving time and early lactations, before the cows are pregnant. The discussion should include a killed vaccine versus a modified-live. Most veterinarians are now recommending modified-live for most of the vaccines we are talking about today.

So when would you use a killed vaccine?

Some veterinarians like to use them because they don’t know the background of the cow, such as if there has been a herd expansion, and cows have come in from multiple herds. Modified-live is a live virus that is being given to the cattle so it is going to illicit a little bit greater immune response. Of course, if the history of the cows are known, the veterinarian prefers that, because you get a little bit better immunity. If the history is not known, you don’t know what they have been vaccinated for, and you might be harvesting some of the disease. So if you give them a modified-live you might actually get a more severe outbreak of the disease. A killed vaccine a lot of times is given when you don’t have a case history of what those animals have been given in the past. The veterinarian should be involved with everything: the timing of these events, the recommendations of what vaccines are being used -- and these change periodically as they are updated by the companies -– and in the handling of vaccines. The handling of Vaccines is important. Usually they are refrigerated until use. They will look at how many animals you are going to be vaccinating at one time. It is better to get a larger bottle where you will use up the whole bottle, versus maybe a single dose or smaller size bottle, because if you don’t use it all you don’t want to put it back in the refrigerator. A big point is that your herd health professional, your veterinarian, can help in all phases of this and needs to be involved because they know the health history of the herd and what that herd needs protection for.

Talk a little bit more about the handling of the vaccine.

The way the vaccine is handled is very important. Make sure it is refrigerated from the time that you get it from the veterinarian, who has it refrigerated, and that you keep it refrigerated. Use a single-service needle, not one that is shared from animal to animal, because you could get some of that blood transferred. The handling of those vaccines is a critical component, because if it is put out on the dashboard of a pickup, especially a modified-live, it could warm up and make that vaccine ineffective.

That is Ray Nebel, Extension Specialist and Professor of Reproductive management at Virginia Tech.

Select Sires Inc., 11740 U.S. 42 North, Plain City, Ohio 43064 / Phone: (614) 873-4683 Fax: (614) 873-5751