Just because there is a vaccine on the market to prevent or reduce disease risk, that doesn’t mean that you need to use it in your herd, unless it is a core vaccine and proven effective and safe.
Base your vaccination decisions on sound, objective scientific data. Weigh the pros and cons of vaccination for each infectious disease. Examine the effectiveness of vaccines currently on the market and the costs and benefits of using the vaccine. Vaccination decisions should be made specifically for each beef herd in consultation with your herd veterinarian, considering the risks of disease to your herd (or neighbouring herds), your production needs and your personal risk aversion (e.g. how much economic risk are you willing to take by not vaccinating your cow herd for a particular disease).
To make these decisions, one needs to understand each disease, how common the infectious agents are in your herd or local area, your current management practices (e.g. closed or open herd), not to mention the benefits of vaccinating and consequences of not vaccinating.
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The American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP), which includes Canadian veterinarians, recently came out with vaccination recommendations for beef herds in North America, available at aabp.org/committees/resources/VaccGuidelines2021.pdf. A group of experienced Canadian beef cattle veterinarians, including practitioners, professors, researchers, and pharmaceutical technical veterinarians, convened to review the AABP vaccination guidelines and come up with vaccination recommendations for western Canadian beef herds. These vaccination recommendations will be discussed here, and they are part of a larger extension project that this expert working group is conducting, supported by the Beef Cattle Research Council and other industry partners, to improve strategic vaccination practices in beef herds in Canada.
Following numerous discussions, the expert working group agreed on a list of core vaccines to recommend for all western Canadian beef herds. Core vaccines protect from common diseases in western Canadian beef cow-calf herds; for bacteria or viruses that are virulent or highly infectious, pose a severe disease risk to either cows, bulls, replacement heifers, and/or calves; and for which there is a commercial vaccine available that is efficacious when used according to label directions. A severe disease risk is either a high treatment rate, high death rate, and/or a high case fatality rate (meaning, of those that were sick, many eventually died).
The core vaccines recommended in all western Canadian beef herds are:
- bovine herpes virus type 1 (BHV1 — also known as infectious bovine rhino tracheitis or IBR)
- bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV)
- bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV)
- clostridial pathogens, specifically Clostridial chauvoei (blackleg), C. septicum (malignant edema), C. novyi (black disease), C. sordelli (gas gangrene), and C. perfringens types B, C, and D (enterotoxemia and enteritis)
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These vaccine recommendations are like the AABP recommendations other than for the parainfluenza 3 virus. There was some controversy in the expert working group on making parainfluenza 3 virus a core vaccine requirement in western Canadian beef herds because there is limited published evidence to support it causing clinical disease commonly in western Canadian beef herds. However, the parainfluenza 3 virus is frequently included with BHV1 in many commercial vaccines, so depending on which vaccines you choose to use, protection for this virus might come along for the ride, whether you want or need it.
Whether to vaccinate for other diseases depends on whether those diseases pose a significant health risk to your herd and the cost-benefit of vaccinating different age/production groups. Disease risks may vary based on:
- geographical location
- whether you have a closed or open herd
- current or historic disease challenges within each age/production group in your herd
- your animal husbandry practices, including availability of labour and facilities
- whether you show some of your cattle
- the purpose of the cattle (i.e. breeding stock, feeders)
- the market for your sale cattle (i.e. breeding herd, feedlot, slaughter)
There must be strong scientific evidence to indicate that these other vaccines are efficacious, efficient and safe for the age and sex of the cattle on which they are being used. Not all vaccines on the market are proven effective in reducing clinical disease in commercial beef operations. These other commercial vaccines include:
- Mannheimia haemolytica
- Pasteurella multocida
- Histophilus somni
- Leptospirosis
- vibriosis
- rotavirus and coronavirus
- E. coli K99
- Moraxella spp (pinkeye)
- Mycoplasma bovis
- rabies
- Salmonella spp
- Bacillus anthracis (anthrax)
- Fusiformis necrophorus (footrot)
- mastitis (E. coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Streptococcus uberis)
- papillomavirus (warts)
Whether or not to use any of these risk-based vaccines in your herd requires careful thought and at least a yearly discussion with your herd veterinarian, whose job is to understand your beef operation, including your herd’s past and current disease risks, and your current production goals and management system. As well, your veterinarian should be knowledgeable about the latest scientific evidence on the effectiveness, safety and cost-benefit of each vaccine. Ideally, your vet’s knowledge should be based on well-designed, controlled field trials, but such trials aren’t available for all commercial vaccines on the market.
Giving too many vaccines to your cattle at any one time is unwise, not only from an economic perspective, but also because it may be harmful to your cattle due to antigen overload. Antigen overload means that the cattle are being exposed to too many different types of viruses and bacteria in the vaccines at the same time. Their immune systems may not respond well to each one, particularly when a lot of killed whole-cell bacterial vaccines are being used at the same time. Killed bacterial vaccines typically contain some endotoxins, which are structural components of some bacteria, and may have deleterious health effects on cattle. Vaccines with high endotoxigenicity include those for Histophilus somni, E. coli mastitis and Moraxella bovis (pinkeye). For more on endotoxigenicity in beef cattle, see Vaccine Management of Beef Cattle, available online at the NIH website.
All cow-calf producers should have good working relationships with their beef cattle veterinarians, which should include developing a herd-specific vaccination protocol. We encourage all producers to increase their understanding of common infectious bovine diseases that can be prevented with vaccination. Beef extension tools are available from agriculture departments, local veterinary colleges, beef industry groups and the Beef Cattle Research Council’s website beefresearch.ca. As part of the BCRC Cow-Calf Vaccination Extension project, we have created six proper vaccine-handling videos which can be found on YouTube. Producers can also listen to the Western Canadian Health Animal Health Network podcast at wecahn.podbean.com/e/beef-cow-calf-vaccination-planning.
The expert working group will be creating infographics on the diseases for core vaccines and for other key diseases where vaccination may be warranted if there is a proven efficacious and effective vaccine on the market. These disease information sheets should help increase your understanding of each disease — what bacteria and/or viruses cause it, how to diagnose the disease clinically, how to treat it, and how to prevent and control it. Vaccination is only one tool in your toolbox to prevent common infectious diseases. It is not sufficient without good animal husbandry practices, including good nutrition and environmental management.
Additionally, the expert working group will create decision trees on core vaccines to help producers and vets work together to determine the best time to vaccinate different age groups in the herd. We will also create decision trees for other diseases where vaccines may or may not be needed, to help producers and vets work together to decide if, when and who needs the vaccine, so a specific vaccination protocol can be created for each herd based on its disease risks and management practices. A herd questionnaire will also be created for veterinarians to give to their producer clients, where needed, to provide additional background information on current herd production information, disease risks and management practices to create a well-thought-out, herd-specific vaccination protocol. Additional webinars on vaccination principles and real herd outbreaks related to poor vaccination practices will also be created. All this information will be made available for all Canadian cow-calf producers to help both you and your veterinarian make more informed, timely and objective business decisions to help prevent infectious diseases in your herd. Stay tuned!
This article was written by Drs. Joyce Van Donkersgoed, Claire Windeyer and Barb Wilhelm.
We acknowledge the financial support of Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC), Alberta Cattle Feeders Association, Manitoba Beef Producers, Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association, Western Canadian Animal Health Network, University of Calgary’s veterinary medicine department, University of Saskatchewan – Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence, Saskatchewan Agriculture, Lakeland College, Boehringer Ingelheim, Elanco, HIPRA, Merck Animal Health and Zoetis for this BCRC cow-calf vaccination extension project. We also acknowledge the technical support of the expert working group, which includes Drs. Van Donkersgoed, Windeyer, Janzen, Wilhelm, Pickard, Newton, Nickel, Fowler, Shock, Kutryk, Wauer, Kostelansky, Erickson, Palmer, Wright, Hanson, Possberg, LaPointe, Peardon, Werle and Lang.
