Steer Planet - Show Steers and Club Calves Forum

The biggest 'herd health' step you could take would be to get the cows out of the dry lot and on pasture.  The environment they're in now substantially increase the likelihood of you actually needing these vaccines. Contrary to what some believe, 'most' cattlemen aren't vaccinating preweaned calves at all much less running the dam through the chute multiple times per year. Very common for a healthy productive cow to never go through a chute after being weaned herself. My advice would be to get the cows out of the slop to prevent the need for most preventative vaccines, give your replacement calves a 7-way when you wean them-- which will address blackleg something that a cleaner environment won't guard against-- and then only put your mature cows through the chute when there's a problem. You'll be highly surprised how much your herd health increases once you let cattle out of confinement, put them on pasture, and only intervene when there's a visable problem. 

The biggest 'herd health' step you could take would be to get the cows out of the dry lot and on pasture.  The environment they're in now substantially increase the likelihood of you actually needing these vaccines. Contrary to what some believe, 'most' cattlemen aren't vaccinating preweaned calves at all much less running the dam through the chute multiple times per year. Very common for a healthy productive cow to never go through a chute after being weaned herself. My advice would be to get the cows out of the slop to prevent the need for most preventative vaccines, give your replacement calves a 7-way when you wean them-- which will address blackleg something that a cleaner environment won't guard against-- and then only put your mature cows through the chute when there's a problem. You'll be highly surprised how much your herd health increases once you let cattle out of confinement, put them on pasture, and only intervene when there's a visable problem.

  Needless to say that running cows in different parts of the country requires different management programs. With land selling for $4500.00 to over $20,000.00 per acre in Iowa the last several years people can't afford to run them on the "range". Most stocking rate range from one pair per acre to one pair per 3 acres depending on if people want to run rotational pastures. Our soils are different here and that's why it is somewhat important to know what kind of problems are common for your own area. Almost all of the calves in Iowa are given at least one round of shots and some are given 3 rounds if you count the 1st round at birth. The vets, drug companies, and the sale barns have gotten together and created programs and at some sales it is hard to sell calves without their green tag programs or their gold tag programs. Missouri Cooporatives have their own programs developed also.
  Dohcvtec your cows may have had their calf shots but you'll want to ck to see if they have had their reproductive shots. IE Vibrio & Lepto combination. I use Vira Shield 6 VL5 and booster Blackleg with Ultrabac 7 Somnus. there again other vaccines are just as good under a different name and pharmaceutical co.

  Honestly you should ask your vet. You could get another bunch of opinions on that question. I think I'll leave it there instead of opening a can of worms.