September 2022
Pneumonia Vaccination
Now is the ideal time to start thinking about pneumonia vaccination for your suckler calves. Immunity from the dam’s colostrum starts to wane at around six months of age, so the protective antibodies against viral and bacterial pneumonia will no longer be present at housing time.
Therefore, vaccination now will stimulate the calf’s own immune system, ensuring the calf produces protective antibodies that will be circulating during the stressful autumn period. Pneumonia is multifactorial, meaning there are many contributing factors to the development of the disease. Management factors include housing, weaning, building ventilation and mixing of groups or ages of cattle. Please speak to one of our vets to discuss options to stagger or reduce these stressors to decrease the risk of pneumonia developing. This is a good time to plan for the housing period.
There are multiple different vaccines available, from a single dose intranasal, to injectable double dose vaccinations which require to be started eight weeks before housing. Each vaccine covers different pathogens and provides different lengths of immunity, so it is best to speak to our vets to discuss which would be most suitable for your herd. If you would like to order your pneumonia vaccine in advance to be able to administer on a rainy day, we are happy to hold your vaccine for up to a month in our fridge.
Time to conduct worm egg counts on your youngstock
Although the area is still looking pretty parched, the showers in the last couple of weeks will have provided the moisture required by worm eggs to hatch. Due to prolonged dry periods, there is likely to be a large number of eggs on the pasture that have built up over the grazing season waiting for some moisture to hatch. At this time of year, it can be difficult to find clean grazing (fields which have not been grazed by youngstock this season) which will increase the infection pressure faced by lambs, calves and yearling cattle.
For these reasons, now is a good opportunity to check worm infection levels using faecal samples. We need fresh samples from 10 animals. For cattle this is easiest in the afternoon when they are lying down, as they often muck when they stand up, and 3 pinches from different areas in each pat should be kept in individual bags. For sheep, if you can hold them in a corner of a field, on the road/a track or in a pen for 10 minutes, you should have plenty of fresh samples deposited. A least a tablespoon of faeces should be collected from each sheep, and kept in individual bags. Squeeze the air out of the bag and keep them cool until you can drop them at the surgery, within 48 hours
Welcome to Terise
You may have already met Terise whilst she has been training in our Leominster office. Terise will be working as an administrator, so you will likely be speaking to her when you call the office. She is a qualified SQP, so will be able to give advice and sell certain products to our clients.
Terise will be supporting the Leominster office to allow Lydia time to complete her veterinary technician training. She has written an introduction to herself: Hi my name’s Terise , you may recognise me from working locally in the Leominster area. I will be working Mondays and Thursdays in the Leominster office and Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays in our Ludlow office. I’m looking forward to working with the Marches Farm Vets team and clients.