HELP!!! Pneumonia

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steermomintx

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Apr 10, 2008
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I need some help.  We are going to have calves start hitting the ground around the end of Aug. first part of September.  We live in south Texas and it has been really hot, last year we lost our best calf to pneumonia we fought it all year during calving season.

My question is can I give the calves anything when they are very young to keep this from happening again.  My dad has asked around but no one seems to be able to give him an answer.

Thanks in advance!!!!!!
 

luannv8

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Jun 13, 2008
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ask your vet...they are bound to have something to give them at birth to stop pneumonia
 

knabe

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steermomintx said:
luannv8 said:
ask your vet...they are bound to have something to give them at birth to stop pneumonia

We have not much help.

not much help, or no help, or too far away, how about picking up shots so they are on hand and you can knock it down when it shows up.
 

steermomintx

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Texas
knabe said:
steermomintx said:
luannv8 said:
ask your vet...they are bound to have something to give them at birth to stop pneumonia

We have not much help.

not much help, or no help, or too far away, how about picking up shots so they are on hand and you can knock it down when it shows up.
That is what we have always done in the past and it works pretty good, but we still lost a calve and it takes alot of time to keep doctoring.  We have about 80 cows that calve between the end of August to the end of October and it seems once one gets it, it becomes a chain reaction.  I was just wondering if there was anything we could give to maybe help prevent it before it gets started.
 

C-CROSS

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The first of October there is  a new vaccine coming out called Onset 5 with Pasturella, it is an intr-nasal and can be given with pretty good results to calves as young at 3 days old.  The 5-way is out already.  As your vet it is a new and exciting product.  We live in a large cow/calf area and will be seeing quite a bit being used.
 

steermomintx

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C-CROSS said:
The first of October there is  a new vaccine coming out called Onset 5 with Pasturella, it is an intr-nasal and can be given with pretty good results to calves as young at 3 days old.  The 5-way is out already.  As your vet it is a new and exciting product.  We live in a large cow/calf area and will be seeing quite a bit being used.
Thank you very much for the information.

Is the 5 way a shot and can it be given when thay are just a few days old??  I am assuming the 5 way is like the 8 way we give older calves.
 

fluffer

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I assume your cows have been vaccinated with a modified live vacc., then make sure that your calves get a belly full of colstrum when they are born.  Did you have the calf posted after it died last year to make sure that was what killed it?  Have plenty of medication on hand and hit them as soon as you think they look ill.  Just a couple of ideas.  Sickness usually comes in waves, this year you may have a whole new problem on no problems at all- Good luck though  :)

Fluffer
 

chambero

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I live in north Texas near Wichita Falls, but our conditions that time of year aren't much different than yours.

Are these cows calving out in open pastures?  If they are, I'm surprised you have respiratory problems in calves that young whether or not the cows were vaccinated.  I'd guess you don't vaccinate your cows though.  Most people in our part of the world don't.  If you are calving cows out in lots, that is where your problem is coming from.

First thing - put out some medicated mineral.  That will help immediately as a preventative.  Your feed stores should carry something with antibiotic in it. 

You need to at least vaccinate your calves for respiratory diseases and preferably cows also.  However, some vaccines can cause miscarriages if given to pregnant cows or calves nursing pregnant cows.  The safest vaccine that we use is out of the Cattlemaster series.  You can give it to any animal at any time.  Not quite as good as some other vaccines (i.e. Vista Once), but we don't have to worry about miscarriages.

If you are like us, its impossible to vaccinate babies immediately at birth.  So, you could vaccinate cows with something like Cattlemaster right now.  That would improve the immunity they pass on to baby.  There are better vaccines (i.e. Vista Once), but they can cause some miscarriages if given to pregnant cows that weren't already vaccinated before they were bred.

At birth or shortly thereafter, you can give the calves whatever respiratory vaccine you want.  I'd recommend Vista Once, but there are lots of other options.  If you don't vaccinate until after your cows are already bred, you have to be careful what you give the calves because they can pass it on to mother during nursing and cause some miscarriages.  Best thing is to vaccinate cows and calves before you rebreed cows.

There are other brands on these vaccines, but these are just the ones I'm more familiar with.
 

steermomintx

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chambero said:
I live in north Texas near Wichita Falls, but our conditions that time of year aren't much different than yours.

Are these cows calving out in open pastures?  If they are, I'm surprised you have respiratory problems in calves that young whether or not the cows were vaccinated.  I'd guess you don't vaccinate your cows though.  Most people in our part of the world don't.  If you are calving cows out in lots, that is where your problem is coming from.

First thing - put out some medicated mineral.  That will help immediately as a preventative.  Your feed stores should carry something with antibiotic in it. 

You need to at least vaccinate your calves for respiratory diseases and preferably cows also.  However, some vaccines can cause miscarriages if given to pregnant cows or calves nursing pregnant cows.  The safest vaccine that we use is out of the Cattlemaster series.  You can give it to any animal at any time.  Not quite as good as some other vaccines (i.e. Vista Once), but we don't have to worry about miscarriages.

If you are like us, its impossible to vaccinate babies immediately at birth.  So, you could vaccinate cows with something like Cattlemaster right now.  That would improve the immunity they pass on to baby.  There are better vaccines (i.e. Vista Once), but they can cause some miscarriages if given to pregnant cows that weren't already vaccinated before they were bred.

At birth or shortly thereafter, you can give the calves whatever respiratory vaccine you want.  I'd recommend Vista Once, but there are lots of other options.  If you don't vaccinate until after your cows are already bred, you have to be careful what you give the calves because they can pass it on to mother during nursing and cause some miscarriages.  Best thing is to vaccinate cows and calves before you rebreed cows.

There are other brands on these vaccines, but these are just the ones I'm more familiar with.

Thanks chambeo, I was hoping you would reply to this.

I am actually asking this question for my dad, he does always vaccinate his cows but I am not sure he vaccinates for pneumonia or respiratory disease.  We really had a bad time of it last year.  Hopefully this year will be better.

The cows calf in coastal fields with trees for shade.
 

steermomintx

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Messages
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Texas
steermomintx said:
chambero said:
I live in north Texas near Wichita Falls, but our conditions that time of year aren't much different than yours.

Are these cows calving out in open pastures?  If they are, I'm surprised you have respiratory problems in calves that young whether or not the cows were vaccinated.  I'd guess you don't vaccinate your cows though.  Most people in our part of the world don't.  If you are calving cows out in lots, that is where your problem is coming from.

First thing - put out some medicated mineral.  That will help immediately as a preventative.  Your feed stores should carry something with antibiotic in it. 

You need to at least vaccinate your calves for respiratory diseases and preferably cows also.  However, some vaccines can cause miscarriages if given to pregnant cows or calves nursing pregnant cows.  The safest vaccine that we use is out of the Cattlemaster series.  You can give it to any animal at any time.  Not quite as good as some other vaccines (i.e. Vista Once), but we don't have to worry about miscarriages.

If you are like us, its impossible to vaccinate babies immediately at birth.  So, you could vaccinate cows with something like Cattlemaster right now.  That would improve the immunity they pass on to baby.  There are better vaccines (i.e. Vista Once), but they can cause some miscarriages if given to pregnant cows that weren't already vaccinated before they were bred.

At birth or shortly thereafter, you can give the calves whatever respiratory vaccine you want.  I'd recommend Vista Once, but there are lots of other options.  If you don't vaccinate until after your cows are already bred, you have to be careful what you give the calves because they can pass it on to mother during nursing and cause some miscarriages.  Best thing is to vaccinate cows and calves before you rebreed cows.

There are other brands on these vaccines, but these are just the ones I'm more familiar with.

Thanks chambeo, I was hoping you would reply to this.

I am actually asking this question for my dad, he does always vaccinate his cows but I am not sure he vaccinates for pneumonia or respiratory disease.  We really had a bad time of it last year.  Hopefully this year will be better.

The cows calf in coastal fields with trees for shade.

Sorry my computer kicked me out before I was finished. I just wanted to say thanks for the information I will pass it along!!

Have you all gone to many shows this summer, I know you went to belt buckle, but any others.

We went to one in July, but it is just too hot for the cattle, we have 4 that we will be going to in the fall, maybe a few more we will see.
 

racekannon

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I have been vaccinating the cows about a month before calving with Bovishield and Multimin.  They also got a Bovishield at preg check and pre-breeding.  It is easier to get on a live program now that as we read the label the cows only need one shot in the last twelve months rather than 2 rounds to start with.  It was hard to catch everyone open and get two doses in them far enough apart and get them away from anything pregnant  not safe with a live for that long, eventhough I have screwed up a few times and been alright.  I feel we are getting much stronger antibodies from mother but I still vaccinate the calves as early as 1 1/2  months with Bovishield.  My vet says the intranasals only last about two weeks and only uses them in conjunction with another respiratory  in an outbreak.  The herd having a strong titer knocked out pneumonia at our place.
 

chambero

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racekannon said:
I have been vaccinating the cows about a month before calving with Bovishield and Multimin.  They also got a Bovishield at preg check and pre-breeding.  It is easier to get on a live program now that as we read the label the cows only need one shot in the last twelve months rather than 2 rounds to start with.  It was hard to catch everyone open and get two doses in them far enough apart and get them away from anything pregnant  not safe with a live for that long, eventhough I have screwed up a few times and been alright.   I feel we are getting much stronger antibodies from mother but I still vaccinate the calves as early as 1 1/2  months with Bovishield.  My vet says the intranasals only last about two weeks and only uses them in conjunction with another respiratory  in an outbreak.  The herd having a strong titer knocked out pneumonia at our place.

I think the intranasal someone referred to in an earlier post is an entirely new deal.  Our Intervet rep told us last February to be watching for it.  Supposed to be safe for any animals any time.

I suspect the worry about miscarriages is overblown, but I've always been scared to be proved wrong via losing a bunch of babies.

Most people down here just don't vaccinate cows.  We still don't bother to vaccinate our mature cows.  We haven't vaccinated our entire calf crop but the last two years.  It hasn't helped us that much, but it has sure helped our buyers apparently.

We haven't been to any other shows since Belt Buckle.  We had thought about going out this month again, but we are running behind in getting things ready for calving season.  We'll probably start showing again in September.

We have 56 heifers to bring to town to calve out and we are in the middle of installing a camera system that we can use to check them over the internet (I live about 1,000 feet from the barn, but we have others that help us check them and hopefully this will save a bunch of drives down to the barn in the middle of the night).  We'll see how it works. If it works like I hope, we could actually use it to sell calves by giving someone a location to go and look at calves "live".  The camera can be controlled by your mouse.
 

C-CROSS

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The 5 way is IBR< BVD type one and 2, PI3 and BRSV.  I believe the 8 way is clostriadials and tetnau, however I could be wrong.  Yes the 5 way can be given at 3 days also.
 
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