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Post by brightraven on Jan 11, 2020 10:50:22 GMT -6
Has anyone considered taking a few serum samples and having the level of antibodies tested for the pathogens you vaccinate for?
Over the summer, I had occasion to serum sample three in my herd. One had excellent titers to the pathogens I vaccinate for. One had good titers but was absent titers for Leptospira borgpetersenii serovar (HB) and one (I purchased that aborted) had low titers.
It might be worthwhile. There are many factors: stress, the vaccination procedures, quality of the vaccine, etc. I am going to do some serum tests this spring about a month after vaccination to see how I am doing.
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Post by tcranch on Jan 11, 2020 17:48:49 GMT -6
I haven't until now. Would it possibly provide a clue as to why my weanlings have been hit by pneumonia the past 2 years, even with vaccinating and accounting for freak weather? Although if I had to test the entire herd, that would be a NO.
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Post by brightraven on Jan 11, 2020 18:12:19 GMT -6
I haven't until now. Would it possibly provide a clue as to why my weanlings have been hit by pneumonia the past 2 years, even with vaccinating and accounting for freak weather? Although if I had to test the entire herd, that would be a NO. Yes. Bovine Respiratory Disease can be viral or bacterial. If you are using vaccines for any of the bacterial pathogens like Mannheimia haemolytica, Pasteurella multocida, Histophilus somni, or Mycoplasma bovis or the viral pathogens including Bovine viral diarrhea (BVD), Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis (IBR), Bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV), and Parainfluenza type-3 virus (PI-3), it can tell you what level of immunity you are achieving. You don't need to test your whole herd. Just pick a few that have been through the vaccinations. Get the serum vials from your vet and the vet will in most cases take care of shipping and help you interpret the results. Just a note. I use Inforce 3 at birth and then booster it at about 2 months. I have not even heard a wheeze in my calves this winter. That takes care of IBR, Parainfluenza, and BRSV. All respiratory viruses.
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Post by Lucky_P on Jan 11, 2020 23:17:02 GMT -6
Do we know what a 'good' titer is? Or, if any particular titer is actually indicative of adequate protection? What about pathogens/vaccines that elicit or depend more upon a cell-mediated immune response or mucosal secretory antibody response than a humoral antibody response? How much does immunity to specific pathogens depend upon circulating antibody versus immune 'memory' cells primed to respond upon subsequent reexposure?
I doubt that just bleeding a random animal here and there and checking titers is going to give you really meaningful information about whether your animals are 'protected', just that their immune system has 'seen' a particular antigen at some point - and it may not accurately reflect actual herd immunity.
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Post by brightraven on Jan 12, 2020 5:09:16 GMT -6
Do we know what a 'good' titer is? Or, if any particular titer is actually indicative of adequate protection? What about pathogens/vaccines that elicit or depend more upon a cell-mediated immune response or mucosal secretory antibody response than a humoral antibody response? How much does immunity to specific pathogens depend upon circulating antibody versus immune 'memory' cells primed to respond upon subsequent reexposure? I doubt that just bleeding a random animal here and there and checking titers is going to give you really meaningful information about whether your animals are 'protected', just that their immune system has 'seen' a particular antigen at some point - and it may not accurately reflect actual herd immunity. My samples were not taken for assessing protectiveness. I did not mean that this limited data would nail down the "protectiveness" of a vaccination program. That untaking would require exhaustive clinical studies. But it does provide information. We may not know whether a titer is "good" but the test will tell us if the subject is negative for a titer. That has value if the subject was just vaccinated for that pathogen. For example, one of my subjects had zero titers to the Leptospira borgpetersenii serova (Harjo bovis). Despite the fact that she was recently vaccinated with a vaccine containing that serovar. Dr. Stanfield suggested that I might test another herd member that was vaccinated at the same time to compare titers. ( Timing Would Be Factor).L In two of my subjects, I was trying to determine the cause of abortions. Thus, two serum samples were taken separated by about 2 weeks. Dr. Stanfield commented on one that the titers were low for one of the pathogens considering when she was vaccinated. (I Know That Is Anecdotal ). Your points are well taken. The antibody serum tests are cheap. However, the effort is a factor. I pulled my own serum samples. If you had to pay a farm call and pay a vet, the equation changes. For TCRanch, The value of the test would not justify doing the entire herd but if she is having similar symptoms year over year, it may be better to put together a plan to determine the pathogen causing the pneumonia. Maybe Doing Some Swabs Or A Tracheal Flush.
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Post by highgrit on Jan 12, 2020 7:56:13 GMT -6
We test our vaccination - mineral program daily. Treated one sick calf last year and had zero abortions and one 14 year old cow that didn't breed back. Quit using MLV and your abortions will quit. I've been through this before but there's no scienctific evidence to support my claims..... imagine that. From my Iimited experience I think a good crossbred cow is healthier than a pure bred.
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Post by brightraven on Jan 12, 2020 8:25:26 GMT -6
We test our vaccination - mineral program daily. Treated one sick calf last year and had zero abortions and one 14 year old cow that didn't breed back. Quit using MLV and your abortions will quit. I've been through this before but there's no scienctific evidence to support my claims..... imagine that. From my Iimited experience I think a good crossbred cow is healthier than a pure bred. MLV had no role in the two abortions. Case study: 1. A heifer that aborted at 7 months. That was 8 months after she received an MLV Fetal Protection vaccine. She tested seropositive for Neospora. Neospora is characterized by abortion at 7 months of gestation. The conclusion; cause of abortion was Neospora influenced pregnancy. There is no vaccine for Neospora and it is becoming epidemic here. Lucky_P, please provide some of your experiences with Neospora. 2. A heifer purchased at the Kentucky Simmental Association sale in September. Also aborted at 7 months gestation. Never exposed to MLV. I called the breeder, he said she was vaccinated with Virashield FP 5. That is a KILLED bacterin!!! I ran two serum tests on her post abortion. Serum samples were collected 2 weeks apart. She was seronegative for everything but vaccination titers. Conclusion: she was pregnant with twins and could not carry them full term as a heifer.
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Post by highgrit on Jan 12, 2020 8:28:53 GMT -6
Your wrong but that's nothing new.
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Post by brightraven on Jan 12, 2020 8:31:05 GMT -6
Your wrong but that's nothing new. It is not about you or i. Are you implying that it was caused by an MLV vaccine? If so, how can that be given the information? Explain please.
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Post by highgrit on Jan 12, 2020 9:26:52 GMT -6
There's a warning on MLV vaccines that says, THIS PRODUCT CAN CAUSE ABORTIONS, personally I think a MLV causes a lot of problems. We used a MLV exclusively years ago as instructed on the label and still do when the sale contract calls for a MLV. Fact is once we quit using a MLV across the whole herd our sickness, abortion rates and open cows has gone down dramatically. We have close to the same amount of cattle related problems now as we had in the past, but we have three times the cattle. I'm sure that when we started culling any cow or calf that had any problems of any kind that helped our herd health. Since I made this post we'll probably see buzzards on a cow today.
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Post by brightraven on Jan 12, 2020 9:37:06 GMT -6
There's a warning on MLV vaccines that says, THIS PRODUCT CAN CAUSE ABORTIONS, personally I think a MLV causes a lot of problems. We used a MLV exclusively years ago as instructed on the label and still do when the sale contract calls for a MLV. Fact is once we quit using a MLV across the whole herd our sickness, abortion rates and open cows has gone down dramatically. We have close to the same amount of cattle related problems now as we had in the past, but we have three times the cattle. I'm sure that when we started culling any cow or calf that had any problems of any kind that helped our herd health. Since I made this post we'll probably see buzzards on a cow today. I am aware of the risk of abortion if an MLV vaccine is misused. I have used MLV Fetal Protection vaccines for 10 years. I went years with zero abortions. Then this year had 2. One was a heifer raised here. (Case 1 above). The cause was Neospora. BTW. Lucky_P guessed the results on her before I got the results - Neospora . He Called It. The only other one was case 2 above. That heifer was never exposed to an MLV vaccine. Rondal Dawson is a good friend and we are peers in Simmental breeding. He said she was vaccinated with Virashield FP 5. Based on my experience, and let me say that I use it ACCORDING TO DIRECTIONS, I have never had an abortion caused by MLV to my knowledge.
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Post by highgrit on Jan 12, 2020 9:55:35 GMT -6
There's a warning on MLV vaccines that says, THIS PRODUCT CAN CAUSE ABORTIONS, personally I think a MLV causes a lot of problems. We used a MLV exclusively years ago as instructed on the label and still do when the sale contract calls for a MLV. Fact is once we quit using a MLV across the whole herd our sickness, abortion rates and open cows has gone down dramatically. We have close to the same amount of cattle related problems now as we had in the past, but we have three times the cattle. I'm sure that when we started culling any cow or calf that had any problems of any kind that helped our herd health. Since I made this post we'll probably see buzzards on a cow today. I am aware of the risk of abortion if an MLV vaccine is misused. I have used MLV Fetal Protection vaccines for 10 years. I went years with zero abortions. Then this year had 2. One was a heifer raised here. (Case 1 above). The cause was Neospora. BTW. Lucky_P guessed the results on her before I got the results - Neospora . He Called It. The only other one was case 2 above. That heifer was never exposed to an MLV vaccine. Rondal Dawson is a good friend and we are peers in Simmental breeding. He said she was vaccinated with Virashield FP 5. Based on my experience, and let me say that I use it ACCORDING TO DIRECTIONS, I have never hadan abortion caused by MLV to my knowledge. Knowledge is the kicker. We don't pay very good attention to our cows anymore, so any cow that's open when I check her could of had an abortion as far as I'm concerned.
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Post by brightraven on Jan 12, 2020 10:40:13 GMT -6
I cannot tolerate open cows. I suppose big commercial operations can to some extent.
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Post by tcranch on Jan 12, 2020 18:13:07 GMT -6
Gotta be honest, Raven. MLV's scare me but most likely because I've never used them although retained heifers get a MLV when they're BANGS/pelvic measured - by the vet.
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Post by brightraven on Jan 12, 2020 18:16:28 GMT -6
Gotta be honest, Raven. MLV's scare me but most likely because I've never used them although retained heifers get a MLV when they're BANGS/pelvic measured - by the vet. Don't be scared. A lot of the fear is hype. Nevertheless, killed vaccines are effective.
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