Reproductive Herd Health
Valuable Vaccinations
Tips for better reproductive cattle health.
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS (Feb. 2, 2005) — Are you doing all you can in your cow herd to boost reproductive cattle health? With an estimated 10% of the calf crop lost between pregnancy diagnosis and weaning, senior Pfizer veterinarian Glenn Rogers says there is tremendous room for improvement.
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| Tom Hairgrove, Haskell Vet Clinic |
“The bottom line is producers are losing a lot of calves,” he told Cattlemen’s College® attendees, indicating much of those losses are due to reproductive diseases that cause an increased rate of abortion, stillbirths and preweaning mortality.
Rogers said the key to improving reproductive performance is in improving reproductive management, such as body condition score (BCS), conducting annual breeding soundness exams on bulls and pregnancy diagnosis among females. As well, disease challenges can be reduced and herd immunity improved through biosecurity and annual vaccinations for reproductive diseases.
Rogers said the four reproductive diseases of concern are infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR), bovine viral diarrhea (BVD), leptospirosis and vibriosis — all of which can be prevented with proper vaccination strategies.
He pointed out that the most important part of a reproductive herd health program should focus on replacement heifers. “There is a tremendous carryover effect we get in disease protection among heifers that have been part of a prebreeding vaccination program,” Rogers reported. As a guideline, he said, heifers should receive two doses of vaccination for IBR, BVD, vibrio and lepto prior to breeding. And then as cows, animals should be given an annual booster vaccination.
Rogers said getting heifers off to a solid reproductive start will affect long-term economics for the herd. He cited research showing that getting females bred in the first 21 days of the breeding season results in a significant return on investment in the extra weight of calves and faster breed back of the females.
Along with these basic management strategies, private practice veterinarian Tom Hairgrove of Haskell, Texas, addressed a relatively new culprit in bovine reproductive health — Hardjo-bovis. This is a new serotype of the leptospiroris disease, and recent studies have found it to be prevalent in nearly half of the herds that have been tested. However, current vaccine combinations do not provide protection for this serotype.
Hairgrove explained that the disease can be difficult to diagnose, but says with a good biosecurity program and use of the new Spirovac vaccine from Pfizer it can be prevented. He also advised monitoring for this disease in bulls. Because it is a venerally transmitted disease, if bulls have it they can easily spread it to the females they breed.
For animals infected with Hardjo-bovis, treatment with LA200 and immediate vaccination has been successful in clearing the disease, Hairgrove said. He cautioned that Hardjo-bovis is a disease that can be transmitted to humans. Thus, care must be taken when testing and treating animals for the disease.
For more about designing a reproductive herd health vaccination program, contact your local veterinarian.
— by Kindra Gordon, field editor, Angus Productions Inc.
© Copyright 2005 Angus Productions Inc.
Editor’s Note: This article was written under contract or by staff of Angus Productions Inc. (API), which claims copyright to this article. It may not be published or distributed without the express permission of Angus Productions Inc. To request reprint permission and guidelines, contact Shauna Rose Hermel, editor, at (816) 383-5270 or shermel@angusjournal.com.