Livestock Management RANCHING
Prepping Replacements
By Gary DiGiuseppe H
OW SHOULD THE PRODUCER PROTECT REPLACE- ment heifers from illness and repro- ductive disorders? And are there dif-
ferent regimens that that can be followed? Dr. Mark Spire, D.V.M., technical services
manager for Merck Animal Health, says in developing a replacement heifer from wean- ing up until fi rst calf, you’re really looking at 2 entities. “At weaning time,” Spire says, “we have
to concern ourselves with respiratory disease control. Most of the agents that we would take in a typical vaccine can also cause a reproductive side effect that we can protect against later on.” There’ll be more on this later in this article. Spire says the standard vaccine in a basic program
Travis Hill, formerly with the Triangle Ranch near Paducah, prepares to administer a vaccination. Photo by Russell Graves,
russellgraves.com.
blackleg (Clostridium) family of bacterial diseases. Spire says, “Typically, we use a 7-way component at weaning time as a booster vaccine. This gives us a heifer that’s vaccinated out through the weaning process.”
would be a 5-way viral vaccine. This controls infec- tious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR or “red nose”), bovine viral diarrhea (BVD) types 1 and 2, bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV), and parainfl uenzia-3 virus (PI- 3). Those are the most common pathogens out there from a viral side. “At weaning time,” he says, “we will also want
to look for other protections, primarily against our respiratory bacteria. That’s going to have us use a Mannheimia product, potentially Mannheimia with leukotoxin in it — the toxin that produces and causes most of the lung damage — and then against Pasteurella multocida. Those 2 are our most frequent pathogens, and recent diagnostics have told us that P. multocida is really isolated more frequently around weaning time than Mannheimia is.” In addition, the heifer will need boosters. She should have received initial vaccines at branding against the
tscra.org
30 days ahead of fi rst breeding season Preparation for the heifer’s fi rst breeding season
should begin about 30 days in advance. “Now we’re switching from respiratory control to reproduction control,” Spire says. Protection continues against red nose, the IBR virus,
and the BVD family, types 1A, 1B, and 2A. “If we use a comprehensive viral vaccine at weaning, we can come back now and booster it,” he says. “Now she’s coming up on a year of age or slightly over, maybe 13 months. That will booster off quite well at that point in time, but we also want to add some other components to this.” Among those will be a comprehensive vaccine against leptospirosis, an organism that can cause both infertility and abortions. Spire recommends a vaccine for lepto that gives good cross protection to other strains that may not be
January 2014 The Cattleman 39
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