Having a solid disease prevention plan in place is essential to protect cattle health and optimize profitability, especially in today’s markets. Dr. Dan Tracy, a beef technical services veterinarian with Zoetis, talked about the potential costs or negative impacts associated with improper vaccine administration.
“The cost of improper vaccine administration goes beyond the cost of the vaccine. It’s all because that leads to the improper immune response, which in cows can result in the birth of persistently infected calves and BVD, and an increased rate of death and sickness amongst calves. These vaccines are certainly the best tools that we have to prevent the costs of reproductive disease. But certainly, if we don’t use them correctly and don’t handle them correctly, then the cost is disease, cost of death, cost of sickness, and in the reputation of that farm as far as their calves are concerned.”
He said the industry gets caught in what he calls “checking off the boxes.”
“We’ve got to work the cows. We’ve got to get this done. The vet’s going to be here. We got these calves in. We got to vaccinate them, and it’s a rush to do it. A lot of times, we’ve got to slow down and remind ourselves, why are we doing these things, and why are we vaccinating? And then part of that, we need to give it a return of our investment in our vaccine and our time, and we’re taking all this time to do that as well. We just need to make sure we handle these vaccines effectively and administer them effectively. If not, all the time and effort and money that we put in is all for naught.”
Tracy said inadequate vaccine storage is one of the biggest mistakes producers make with their vaccines.
“From the time when we receive these vaccines, they go from a cool container, or whether the veterinarian brings them to you or you purchase them from the veterinarian, however you receive your vaccines, you must put them into a cool refrigerator. Refrigerators need to keep them in a clean environment. It may be in the office and as a dedicated refrigerator for vaccines, and they need to have a thermometer in that refrigerator too to make sure it’s maintaining that temperature. Mixing too many vaccines at once, leaving these vaccines out in the sunlight, and not keeping these vaccines in a cool environment after we mix the vaccines can all be detrimental as well. So, we may have stored the vaccines well, but then, when it becomes time to use them, we can shoot ourselves in the foot if we mix too many vaccines, and it takes us a couple of hours to get through all those vaccines. Well, there’s been a whole tank of vaccines that’s probably existed in some heat.”
Even putting warm beverages into the same refrigerator to cool them off could warm up the refrigerator outside the range that vaccines need to be stored in. One more important tip includes changing vaccine needles regularly.
“One of the things, especially in the Southeast, where we have a lot of potential transmission of blood-borne diseases like anaplasmosis, BLV, changing needles and changing cannulas is important too for giving intranasal vaccines. But changing needles, especially in those reproductive females, as we don’t want to transfer any kind of diseases in these cattle, because we have them for years. They’re a production part of our farm, and anymore, I say, change needles in between cattle. Work with your veterinarian to know what kind of environment where you are in the country where the risk of those transmissible blood-borne diseases are. Needles are cheap when compared to the potential cost if you shorten the productive life of that cow.”