Vet Advice: Why forgetting about IBR vaccination because you’re too busy at silage is not an option

I turned the key to begin my journey but, to my initial surprise, nothing happened. As I turned the key again, it started to dawn on me what the problem was — I had let the ad-blue run out. As Del Boy would say : “What a wally!” I had meant to top it up but now, due to being ‘too busy’ and always putting it on the long finger, I was stranded.

As I waited for my less than impressed wife to come to the rescue with a five gallon drum of the most annoying substance in the world, I thought about the animal health-related tasks that are often forgotten about at this time of year, leading to disastrous consequences.

IBR vaccination is part of the herd health plan in most dairy herds nowadays. Every six months, all cows are vaccinated with a modified live vaccine that ensures protection against a disease that not only causes pneumonia, but also milk drop and embryo loss.

With both peak milk and peak breeding occurring on a lot of farms at present, it is vital that IBR vaccination is kept up to date. The IBR virus comes to a head when animals are stressed and there is no better stress than a cow bulling while simultaneously dishing out 30-plus litres of milk per day. Cows that were vaccinated in January need to receive another shot this month.

Forgetting about it because you are too busy at silage or slurry is just not an option. Don’t forget, it’s the cows that are paying for the shiny machinery you are driving. It’s a cheap, intramuscular vaccine that takes no time at all to give. If in any doubt, give your vet a shout. They will be able to tell you when you last vaccinated and when its due again.

Staying with IBR, calves that were vaccinated up the nose when in the shed may shortly be due a booster. If a calf was vaccinated intranasally at two to three weeks of age, they will need a booster shot into the muscle when they are three months old. This shot will bring them into the six-month cycle going forward.

Calves born in February are due this booster shot now. This time of year can be quite stressful for calves as they adjust to a diet of often too lush grass, far removed from the comfort of the straw-bedded calf shed.

A quick trip up the crush now could avoid treating multiple sick calves with pneumonia later.

Another task that is easily forgotten at this time of year is treating calves for coccidiosis at pasture. In any herd with a history of coccidiosis, all calves should be treated with a diclazuril-based product, two to three weeks after turnout.

I know it’s a pain having to round up young calves in a paddock, but maybe combine it with the IBR booster and kill two birds with the one stone and make life slightly easier. Sometimes though, it’s easy to make a leap further to try and make life easier again.

I have come across numerous cases of coccidiosis in calves at pasture recently where the farmer is adamant the calves were treated.

However, when investigated further, the diclazuril dose was given on the day of turnout as it was easy to catch the calves in the shed before loading them into the trailer.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t cut the mustard. Calves need to be exposed to the coccidial parasite at grass and then treated in order to break the life cycle. So two to three weeks post-turnout is the only successful option.

Another attempt to make life easier surrounds calves’ first worm dose. After a lot of sweating and cursing trying to gather calves up for their coccidiosis treatment, many farmers think: “I’ve no interest in getting them in any time soon, sure I’ll worm them now and get it out of the way.”

Handy as this may seem, it is actually a terrible idea. Calves need exposure to worms to develop some immunity and dosing them too early impedes this vital process. What might seem an easy option now will most certainly mean much more difficulty later, when calves are coughing and sick due to inadequate exposure to worms early in the grazing season.

Over the next two to three weeks, don’t forget to take some faecal samples, which will guide you to the correct timing of giving the first worm dose.

One of the most often forgotten tasks, with the most obvious disastrous consequences, is giving what is commonly referred to as ‘the shot for blackleg’. Blackleg is only one of the diseases covered by the eight-in-one or 10-in-one vaccine.

Every year, we are contacted by farmers to try to shed light on the sudden death of one of the best weanlings in the herd. The swollen hind quarter and distinctive black, crackly muscle point to blackleg as the cause.

“The vaccine mustn’t have worked,” is often the farmer’s first response, but usually, we find that the booster shot was forgotten about.

It’s easy to give the first shot when the calves are indoors, but the second one all too often falls through the cracks and never gets done.

Without the booster six weeks after their primary injection, calves won’t have adequate cover. It’s better to do the job now rather than have your memory jogged by a dead weanling when it’s too late.

Be it ad-blue or animal health, don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today. 

Eamon O’Connell is a vet with Summerhill Vet Clinic, Nenagh, Co Tipperary