Raising healthy cattle

Viral diseases in beef cow herds are pesky and serious. That’s why you vaccinate at least once a year for such things as BVD (Types 1 and 2), IBR, PI3, Lepto, and a few others that your veterinarian recommends.

If that were the whole story, it would be fairly simple. But sometimes the type of vaccine becomes an issue with reproductive performance.

Vaccines come in two types: killed vaccine and modified-live vaccine (MLV). 

A killed vaccine has a killed portion of the pathogen and no live material. It still triggers an immune response.

MLV, on the other hand, contains an attenuated version of the live virus that comes closer to mimicking a real infection. It gives a stronger response, experts say, but it can also on rare occasions lead to pregnancy loss.

Elanco cattle reproductive specialist Frank White says research reveals that the strong response to an MLV stresses a cow’s reproductive system. It interferes with her ability to form a functional corpus luteum on her ovaries and to produce progesterone, the hormone needed to maintain pregnancy. Sometimes this results in early pregnancy loss.

Elanco, which makes cattle vaccines, has tested its killed vaccine, Vira Shield, against competitive MLVs. Vira Shield resulted in a 4.3% higher pregnancy rate 56 days after breeding. “With 100 cows, that’s four more pregnancies,” White says.

More cows on the killed vaccine calved in the first 21 days of the calving season because they maintained their initial pregnancy.

White suggests MLV be used for young animals before they reach reproductive age. That will set them up later for an annual booster with a killed vaccine, thus avoiding the risk of a lost pregnancy.

Fall calving fits with long-duration deworming

Brandi Buzzard and her husband run a fall-calving cow herd in southeast Kansas. They like fall calving for the good weather and the way it fits their work schedule: Both have off-farm jobs; summers are very busy for their young family; and they don’t grow farm crops to be harvested in the fall. 

Fall calving also lends itself to a long-duration deworming program, Buzzard says. 

“We deworm the cows in April, right before we kick them out to grass,” she says. “It’s a large acreage they go to, and with the long-duration dewormer, we don’t have to gather them up again until the fall. This dewormer carries them for 150 days, all the way to our fall calving season.”

Since they started the herd six years ago, Buzzard says regular deworming has been a priority. 

“We don’t want thin cows or any cattle with the rough hair coats having worms,” she says. “We want nutrients going to the cows and calves, not to worms.”

They use the dewormer LongRange, an extended-release product that is administered by injection.

Cattle health and nutrition intersect

If you’ve got a health problem in your cattle, you go to your veterinarian, but your nutritionist is increasingly in the conversation, too. Part of the reason for this shift is new regulations on antibiotic use. Feed-grade antibiotics are no longer available (without veterinary directive) to control harmful bacteria. 

  “Rather than treating a sick animal for a specific pathogen, we’re finding new ways to feed the good microbes and increase the overall immune status of the animal,” says Ted Perry, a beef cattle nutritionist for Purina.

Purina’s approach is to include a relatively new ingredient in its cattle starter feeds called RX3 (recognize, respond, and recover). It’s a combination of prebiotics, probiotics, live yeast, and plant extracts that feed the good microbes in the digestive system. No veterinary feed directive is required. 

A nutritional approach to health doesn’t negate the need for a good vaccination program, says Perry. “Animals on a quality nutrition program respond much better to vaccines. This is really a matter of two industries blending together — nutrition and health.”

The interaction impacts cow herds, too, he says. “By feeding the mama cows for better health, we improve colostrum quality. That leads to a more immune calf. We’re just now learning about the early health of a calf — even before birth — and how it sets him up for the rest of his life.”