ANIMART Beyond Products Blog

Making the effort to give a vaccination doesn’t guarantee success. Here’s how vaccination can go wrong at an important age.

Dr. Mark van der List, Professional Services Veterinarian with Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Inc., says preventing disease in growing heifers isn’t a one-shot process. Many vaccines do not prevent disease, but instead prime the calf to provide some level of protection or reduce disease.  Also, activities around vaccination time, the environment and nutrition all play a role.

In a recent DCHA webinar, “Heifer Health at a Forgotten Age,” Dr. van der List detailed common ways that vaccination efforts go off track, especially for recently weaned heifers being primed for breeding.

Some of the most common reasons vaccination can be hindered include:

• The wrong vaccine (inadequate antigen coverage)
  Choose a vaccine that offers protection against all economically and regionally significant diseases, as recommended by your veterinarian. DCHA’s Gold Standards II provides a listing of suggested diseases to target.
• Improper handling
  Expired vaccines, or those that are stored or handled improperly, won’t give you the results you want. Read and follow all label instructions.
• No booster
  Killed vaccines and some modified-live vaccines require a booster vaccination to achieve adequate protection. The booster should be given according to label directions prior to the time of expected challenge. Immunity wanes with time and so booster vaccines are needed at later times in the heifer’s life. Visit with your veterinarian to discuss proper timing of vaccinations.
• Colostral antibody interference
  The antibodies absorbed from colostrum, which are so important to early calf health, cannot distinguish between the antigens of a natural challenge and the antigens in a vaccine. Therefore, colostral antibodies can interfere with the immune response to vaccination.
• Inadequate nutrition
  Make sure diets satisfy all nutritional requirements to keep heifers healthy. Vaccines should be administered according to label directions to healthy individuals, so read the labels.
• Parasites
  Parasites can compromise the health of growing heifers. Here again, vaccines should be given to healthy animals and according to label directions.
• The challenge was too great
  If significant disease is already present or encountered, vaccination should not be the only disease management tool used to stop the disease. Vaccines are not a substitute for poor management.
• Stress
   Any event that pushes a heifer out of her comfort zone, such as weaning or dehorning, causes stress, which can interfere with a heifer’s ability to respond successfully to vaccination. Remember that each small stress is cumulative.

To get the best results from vaccinating, Dr. van der List urges producers to minimize challenges and stress and maximize protection. Heifer environment, nutrition and much more all play a role in successful vaccination.
For more information about ensuring the health of growing heifers, watch the complete DCHA webinar, “Heifer Health at a Forgotten Age,”  presented by Dr. Mark van der List, and sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Inc.

To review DCHA’s recommendations on vaccinations guidelines for heifers, six months to freshening, see Gold Standards II. Gold Standards III also provides vaccination and health management protocols.

Source: Dairy Calf & Heifer Association Tip of the Week

This blog is part of a series on the Dairy Calf and Heifer Associations new Gold Standards III  guidelines for rearing dairy calves and heifers.  

When the calf hits the ground the first thing we think is to collect colostrum from the cow and into the calf, ASAP. DCHA guidelines promote collection of colostrum and feeding 3-4 quarts within 6 hours after birth. The goal is to feed 150-200 grams of IgG, which should read green in the colostrometer or at 22% solids with a Brix.

Colostrum quality can be affected by nutrient content of proteins, vitamins and minerals provided in the dry cow ration during late stages of pregnancy. Also, the higher the stress of the dry cows during late gestation, the greater the suppression of the dam’s immune system; stress goes up, colostrum quality goes down. 

Remember, along with providing energy, colostrum is the sole source of antibodies to the calf. So when does colostrogenesis, the formation of colostrum, occur? Antibodies from the dam’s serum start shifting into the mammary system 5 to 6 weeks pre-calving. Vaccines can be put in the dry cow program with the goal of the cow producing the antibodies to be packaged into colostrum.

What is the best time to administer vaccines to the cow for optimum antibody concentration in colostrum?

It takes 3-4 weeks after exposure to a vaccine for significant antibody production, and serum concentration will spike 5-7 days after a booster.  

The goal for quality colostrum is for the dam’s antibody serum concentration to peak just as antibodies from the dam’s serum start shifting into the mammary. This means that in the first year of vaccination, the first dose of vaccine should be given 10-12 weeks pre-calving and boostered in 3 weeks. In subsequent years, 1 booster at 7-8 weeks pre-calving is ideal. Always follow the recommendation of the vaccine label and work with your veterinarian for the optimum timing and vaccines in your herd protocol.

For all the work it takes to make quality colostrum, it only makes sense to collect and feed colostrum in clean containers. The presence of bacteria in colostrum can compete with antibodies for absorption in the gut. Calves fed dirty colostrum have higher rates of failure of passive transfer and greater chances of becoming sick. 

DCHA Gold Standards recommend feeding 10 % of the body weight. This is typically 4 quarts to a Holstein and 3 quarts to a jersey calf.

 Colostrum management is a lot of work, but worth the reward of healthy calves. It’s better to be proactive with good hygiene and vaccination protocols than treating sick calves.

By Dr. Terri Taraska, Technical Services Veterinarian at ANIMART.

Watch as Dr. Ernsberger and Tom Klas from ANIMART’s ProHealth Team explain the basics of BRD.  

BRD, or Bovine Respitory Disease, is caused by bacteria and viruses but can be controlled if proper environmental and nutrition conditions are provided and vaccination protocols followed.