We got on early and ordered our clostridial vaccines so we had enough to dose our lambs as usual at the start of may and again at the start of june, although we had to use ovivac P rather than heptavac P. However, we've had so many problems I'm starting to suspect the vaccines haven't worked and speaking to a few other farmers locally they seem to have the same problem.
One batch of lambs started to die at the end of June, 3 weeks after their booster dose. A post mortem confirmed it was pasteurella. The vet who did the post mortem told us we couldn't do anything about it as our lambs were vaccinated up and it was obviously our colostrum management at fault. Now I did take offence at this as I am very particular about colostrum management. We test a good proportion of our ewes for colostrum quality with a refractometer and I make a point of checking any newborn lambs a few hours after birth to make sure they got a suck, though obviously I may have missed an odd one it seemed strange so many were dying! So we decided to just vaccinate all that batch again and the problem was cured. It was a new nit of land we had taken so I just put it down to a high level of disease on that pasture and stressed lbs from loads of dog walkers using the field.
Fast forward to now and I moved a different batch of ewes and lambs from the pasture fields they've been on to some silage aftermath. I put them in there about a week before weaning then remove the ewes to reduce the stress on the lambs. A few days after moving them a big lamb was dead so again, a post mortem and this time it was pulpy kidney. The vet said it was because I changed the diet onto lush grass but we never usually have a problem. Again I got more ovivac P and jab ed all this batch of lambs and as we walked the last lot back to the field another big single lamb dropped down dead in front of me. Judging by the pericardial fluid it's another case of pulpy kidney. We do usually do a third dose but not until October!
So yes, the whole thing has got me a bit nervous and suspicious of how effective the vaccines actually are. The vaccine company is blaming farmers saying the vaccines must have gone off in the bottle as we were using them in the hot weather but I'm not totally buying that either. I ordered everything in 100s and any to jab away from home was transported and kept in a fridge bag with an ice pack till it was used.
I'm now debating if I need to booster these again in 4-6 weeks if the initial doses haven't worked, I think I need to ring the vet again!
Has anyone else found problems with the vaccines not working right this time?
One batch of lambs started to die at the end of June, 3 weeks after their booster dose. A post mortem confirmed it was pasteurella. The vet who did the post mortem told us we couldn't do anything about it as our lambs were vaccinated up and it was obviously our colostrum management at fault. Now I did take offence at this as I am very particular about colostrum management. We test a good proportion of our ewes for colostrum quality with a refractometer and I make a point of checking any newborn lambs a few hours after birth to make sure they got a suck, though obviously I may have missed an odd one it seemed strange so many were dying! So we decided to just vaccinate all that batch again and the problem was cured. It was a new nit of land we had taken so I just put it down to a high level of disease on that pasture and stressed lbs from loads of dog walkers using the field.
Fast forward to now and I moved a different batch of ewes and lambs from the pasture fields they've been on to some silage aftermath. I put them in there about a week before weaning then remove the ewes to reduce the stress on the lambs. A few days after moving them a big lamb was dead so again, a post mortem and this time it was pulpy kidney. The vet said it was because I changed the diet onto lush grass but we never usually have a problem. Again I got more ovivac P and jab ed all this batch of lambs and as we walked the last lot back to the field another big single lamb dropped down dead in front of me. Judging by the pericardial fluid it's another case of pulpy kidney. We do usually do a third dose but not until October!
So yes, the whole thing has got me a bit nervous and suspicious of how effective the vaccines actually are. The vaccine company is blaming farmers saying the vaccines must have gone off in the bottle as we were using them in the hot weather but I'm not totally buying that either. I ordered everything in 100s and any to jab away from home was transported and kept in a fridge bag with an ice pack till it was used.
I'm now debating if I need to booster these again in 4-6 weeks if the initial doses haven't worked, I think I need to ring the vet again!
Has anyone else found problems with the vaccines not working right this time?
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