16/01/2025
🐮 Pre-calving vaccinations 🐮
Vaccinating your in-calf heifers and cows is an excellent way to start your calves off on the best footing. By vaccinating, pre-calving this allows antibodies to be passed onto the calves during the pregnancy and through colostrum. Timing depends on the specific vaccine but often this needs to be done about 4 weeks prior to calving.
One of the most common things to vaccinate for is clostridial diseases - these are often fatal diseases with poor response to treatment. There are lots of different variations of clostridial disease - pulpy kidney, braxy, blackleg, black disease, tetanus are all examples of clostridial diseases.
Scour is also something we can vaccinate against - targeting coronavirus, rotavirus and E. coli. The use of vaccination doesn’t mean you won’t have any calves at all with scour, but greatly reduces the number affected and the severity of those that are!
Other common vaccines for diseases such as Leptospirosis and BVD can be given during pregnancy.
As with any prevention measures, it all comes down to the individual risks on your farm. Please contact the office on 01382 811111 to speak to one of our dedicated large animal vets who can discuss which vaccines would be most suitable for your farm.