Select Sires

Vaccinations for Diseases that Affect Reproduction (Part One)
Transcript of Select Sires' Reproductive Moment Program
on DairyLine Radio Which Aired Sept. 22, 2005
With Ray Nebel,
Extension Specialist and Professor of Reproductive Management,
Virginia Tech

Ray, this week we are talking about vaccination programs for protection against diseases that affect reproduction.

The real reproductive diseases that we need to be covered for are bovine viral diarrhea, or BVD, leptospirosis, better known as "lepto", and IBR, which is some of the respiratory diseases. Those would be the three that would probably be uniform across all herds.

Talk some more about Lepto hardjo.

There is a new Lepto strain that has been isolated in the last few years. It is called Lepto hardjo. There are really five Lepto strains that affect dairy cattle. This Lepto hardjo vaccine is a little bit different in that it has been isolated primarily in cattle in North America. It was first seen in Europe and Australia, and now in North America. It is a new vaccine that has only been out a few years.

A number of companies have products for Lepto across the board. There is either a five-way or seven-way Lepto product. In those products there is some coverage for L. hardjo, but it is very minimal. There is a separate L. hardjo vaccine now that isolates L. hardjo, because we know that it is the primary Lepto strain that is causing reproductive inefficiencies in dairy cattle. One of the companies now has the Lepto hardjo in their overall vaccination program. Outside of that the other companies do have a five-way, which means for five different strains of Lepto or one that is a seven-way that is five different Lepto strains plus two other diseases that they are vaccinating for. Then, if you do that, you are going to have to come back and give a separate Lepto hardjo vaccination. It is important that the vaccine that is used for Lepto has Lepto hardjo targeted in that vaccine.

How about vaccinations for natural-service bulls?

When we think about natural service, even if we use an A.I. for first service or for the first few pens in the corrals in the barn, a lot of times we will have clean-up pens, or bull pens, with the problem cows that go from there. A lot of times we will forget about natural service. We need to be vaccinating again for some venereal disease strains, such as Trichomonas and Vibrio. For both Trichomonas and Vibrio there are vaccines that we need to give to the lactating herds to protect them, but we also need to vaccinate the bulls. A point I left out about the Lepto hardjo is that you can test for the disease in herds that are using natural service. What they have seen is that the bull is a nice indicator, because the bulls in the herd had multiple partners, you might say. And if there is Lepto hardjo present in the herd, the bull would be a factor that would harbor that strain of Lepto. If he comes up positive, you would know that a number of the cows of the herd are also positive.

What kind of time frame are we looking at for these vaccinations?

The vaccinations 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. At six months of age we have, again, IBR and BVD. Other diseases that we normally vaccinate for would be pasteurellosis, pneumonia, and some Haemophilus somus. It is not until right before we start breeding, in replacement heifers, that we would go into the Lepto strains that we look at, as well as the Vibrio and Trichomonas strains. Then, in a lactating herd, again with your veterinarian, we would set up a vaccination protocol that would start around calving time and early lactation, before the cows are pregnant.

We will continue more next week with 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