+1 for this. The more naive your herd becomes, the more need there is for vaccinationAsked vet this question once….
Answer was it was more important than ever….with an unvaccinated herd when BVD eventually finds its way to your unprotected herd the result would be catastrophic.
It’s not that much, is it? From Shearwell it adds about £3 to the cost of the secondary tag, plus postage I suppose.We tag and test as part of our contract, not cheap, but it’s something we do that gives us that early PI warning.
We've never vacinated.do the annual test ,never had anything come back.would of thought Scotland should be on top of it now.My vet warned against stopping for the same reasons mentioned above. In theory it shouldn't be a threat now in Scotland but you never know ...
Very very good advice…I vaccinate.
I have had a breakdown due to showing an incalf heifer and someone else knowingly showing a cow with a PI calf.
If you have ever had a breakdown you will continue to vaccinate.
One friend bought a bull that was a PI. Shot 11 cross bread calves the next year. The selling price of the 11 calves would have bought a lot of vaccine.
Another friend bought a cheap BB/AA heifer to fatten. She was incalf. Calf was delivered and was a PI. The calf was on the farm mixing with other stock for a few weeks before the ear sample came back. He is in the midst of calving this year folling that and every cow and calf is isolated as best as he can and notch tagged the day of birth. He has no idea what might (or might not come) and better yet has no real control other than to mitigate.
For the sake of a few quid, id continue vaccinating.
My understanding was that something born as a PI would never thrive, with most dieing under a year old?I vaccinate.
I have had a breakdown due to showing an incalf heifer and someone else knowingly showing a cow with a PI calf.
If you have ever had a breakdown you will continue to vaccinate.
One friend bought a bull that was a PI. Shot 11 cross bread calves the next year. The selling price of the 11 calves would have bought a lot of vaccine.
Another friend bought a cheap BB/AA heifer to fatten. She was incalf. Calf was delivered and was a PI. The calf was on the farm mixing with other stock for a few weeks before the ear sample came back. He is in the midst of calving this year folling that and every cow and calf is isolated as best as he can and notch tagged the day of birth. He has no idea what might (or might not come) and better yet has no real control other than to mitigate.
For the sake of a few quid, id continue vaccinating.
I'm just going by the Scottish BVD eradication scheme guidance. It says (or said in its early days) that these PI calves that you were recommended to cull would not be viable animals long term anyway, and that most would die under a year old. So was just surprised to hear of a PI breeding bull, I'm not saying you're wrong. On the point about the disease dying off, the PI calf only needs to live for a few months to infect other pregnant cows.And there you have it. We all know what thought did.
My PI’s born out of exposed incalf heifers were picked up by notch sampling. I know they were disposed of by 6 weeks of age (I did a further blood test on cows and dams whist in isolation not wanting to believe the initial results). They needed no treatments and appeared to be very viable calves.
I suppose some can survive and thrive or the disease would have died off by itself. PI’s make it as breeding cows so why not bulls?