Staying The Course
Revaccinating high-stress cattle up front proves valuable for health management and feedlot performance.
Newly weaned and bawling, put-togethers from the sale barn, or long-hauled hundreds of miles, calves that originate from high-stress conditions such as these require care up front in order to maintain health and feed efficiently. Feedlot managers and veterinarians here share the economic benefits they are finding – lower per-head medicine costs to greater per-head feed consumption and average daily gains – from revaccinating moderate and highrisk cattle within the first few weeks of the receiving period in order to achieve good immunity and improved feeding performance.
Boosting the Bottom Line
The health status of animals in the finishing sector is something that feedlot managers like Feller Hughs of Paco Feedyard, Friona, Texas, can’t take lightly. That’s why Hughs has
stayed the course with revaccination for 20 years.“Revaccination is a standard and it’s a benefit,” he points out. “If a calf doesn’t get sick, we’re a lot better off, he’s a lot better off.”
All cattle that arrive at this 35,000-head custom yard receive an initial IBR vaccination within 24 hours.
They’re then revaccinated 5-12 days later with Titanium 3. High-risk cattle that include both sale-barn and unweaned calves receive two vaccinations. Yearling cattle, considered a lower risk, may be exceptions to this rule and, if they are, they get Titanium 3 up front, Hughs explains. He adds they’ve been using Titanium for about five years with good results.
Most of the customers who retain ownership in cattle fed at Paco give their calves a good health program early on and many have their calves weaned, Hughs says. He’s seeing some health records arrive with calves but, even so, most of the time these cattle are still vaccinated according to Paco’s standard processing protocols. It’s the lighter-weight, higher-risk cattle such as these – the 3 to 6-weight calves – where Hughs has seen the greatest benefits of revaccination.
“It just helps booster their immunity,” he says. Records show him that health benefits as a result of revaccination are “well worth it. They get sick less and feed better,” Hughs says, which, bottom line, reduces per-head medicine costs, while it improves average daily gain and return on vaccination investment.
Bolstering Immunity Up Front
Similar to Hugh’s strategy at Paco, bolstering immunity on the front end of the feeding phase is a primary reason why feedyard clients of Dr. Doug Hilbig of Hilbig Veterinary Services, Lakin, Kansas, revaccinate feeder cattle. Hilbig consults with central and southwest Kansas feedyards that range
from 8,000 to 55,000 head. Cattle may be 100% owned by the feedyard to 100% custom-fed, with a high
percentage in these yards classified as moderate to high risks.
Moderate risks are usually bigger, single-sourced cattle of sale-barn origin off wheat pasture or summer grasses. “We can tell they’ve had some things done to them; we just don’t know what,” Hilbig explains. On the other hand, high risks are usually puttogether, sale-barn, long-haul-type cattle, out of the Southeast, for example, or bawling calves.
“In all of the yards that I consult that have these classes of cattle, they revaccinate very well,” Hilbig says.
“We feel like the reduction in health problems increases our performance.”
Hilbig explains that his rule of thumb is to process all new arrivals of all risk levels within the first 24-48 hours. The first shot is a vaccination; the second shot is considered a booster if it’s given 10 days or later because “we’ve actually boosted our initial vaccinations,” he explains. All moderate- and high-risk
cattle will get boostered [revaccinated] at least once.
He continues, “Sometimes we come back earlier than what a true revaccination will be just to try to get another IBR into them for an interferon boost. A modified-live IBR has been shown to create that. But
when we get out to day 10 to 14, we’re truly trying to boost our IBR and BVDs.” He adds, “We try to vaccinate with 5-way modified live vaccines. A lot of people will do an IBR-BVD Type 1 and 2; we’ll also add in PI3 and BRSV.”
Hilbig says that he will always give the low-risk cattle – bigger grass cattle, started cattle, or cattle of known history – something too. “We can potentially have a respiratory outbreak,” he explains. “Part of it’s just that we’re throwing them into a high-stress, highexposure environment. We just want to make sure they’re at their peak as they go into it.”
This consulting veterinarian admits his vaccination protocol is a little different from most. “We use different strains – different manufacturer’s vaccines – from what we use initially and what we boost with. It gives me more exposure to different strains of a BVDV.”
He continues, “There probably is no difference in IBR; IBR is a DNA virus that does not mutate very quickly. The BVD virus is an RNA and can have a potential to mutate very frequently. And there’s some data out there that shows one BVDV is going to boost another. We just say, ‘great, if we’re going to boost it, let’s boost it, but let’s just throw a different strain at it.’ We’ve
found that to be fairly effective.” Hilbig adds that, across the board,the highest percentage of time they’ll
use Titanium up front. “In the data that we’ve generated, Titanium has faired very well.”
He says the vaccination schedule they’ve implemented up front on 300- 400-lb. calves has decreased their lateterm breaks. “We feel like we’d rather do it then,” he says, “then to come out at 100 days and have an IBR outbreak. “There are some very noted people who come out and revaccinate at least
over 60 days. And they get along very well with it,” he says. But “we’re trying to get as high immunity as we can up front, especially with the moderate and high-risk cattle, so it carries us for the feeding period.”
Promoting Performance From Early On
Manager Brett Carr also doesn’t skimp on a good preventative health program at the 13,000-head Lewis
Feedlot near Kearney, Neb. Lewis feeds a mix of cattle, from high to low risk, and recently became an all-natural yard that feeds strictly Angus-sired program cattle for one owner. No matter their health history, Carr says all cattle are initially processed within 24-36 hours with a full slate of protection: BVDV Type 1 and Type 2, IBR, PI3, BRSV, 7-way clostridial plus Haemophilus somnus, and TSV2 if calves. They’re revaccinated about 12 days later and that’s when they use Titanium 5.
Carr used to give cattle the same respiratory viral product when he initially processed and then boostered at revaccination. But “we had a pen of cattle that we lost three head probably 30 days after
they were boostered. So our consulting veterinarian suggested using a different strain when we booster,” he explains. Problems cleared up in the pen after they were boostered with Titanium 5. “So, I just switched my program right there and I’ve had excellent results with it,” he says.
According to Carr, Lewis Feedlot’s revac policy is reflected in feed performance, as well. “I get anywhere
from 4-8 lbs. more consumption out of the cattle,” he relates. “I don’t keep printed records, but on my bunk reader screen I know that it does work.”
He sees benefits like these in all weights of cattle and also in the yard’s death loss which runs about 0.5%. He says he used to rebooster cattle at implant time if they weren’t eating real well. “That’s where I would see the increase in consumption, so I just started making it my main program. If I can get 8 lbs. a day out of them up front, instead of waiting 50 or 60 days, my cattle are going to finish – and most of them have – 30 days before we have them projected to go out.
“I think a well-planned vaccination program is very important,” he summarizes. “When you find something that makes your yard tick, you stay with it. I have for about two years now, and it’s been very
good to me.”