1 April 2025

6 minute read

By: Lee Williamson

North America

Dr. Jeff Sarchet, a Managing Veterinarian with Zoetis, recently spoke to The Cattle Site’s Sarah Mikesell at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association Conference called CattleCon in San Antonio, Texas.

With spring calving underway, what’s your advice to producers to get calves started on a healthy path, Jeff?

Preparations should have started several months ago because we're finding out more and more how important the fetal program is when the fetus is developing inside the cow. It's critical that they get all their, not only macronutrients, but also micronutrients because that's particularly important for their immune system. 

Once a calf is born, the next most important thing for their immunity is their colostrum consumption. They typically need to get it within the first 12 hours. In addition, it depends on the quality of the colostrum, but the calf needs to consume anywhere from a half gallon to one gallon of colostrum. On the cow, we can't really measure the amount consumed other than seeing the calf nurse.

So three things must happen:

1. The cow must produce high quality colostrum, and she needs to be vaccinated, so she puts the antibodies into that colostrum.
2. The calf must nurse the colostrum
3. Then the calf must absorb the colostrum.

The absorption is critical because once the calf is born, the intestines can absorb all those proteins directly into the bloodstream. Then the intestine starts closing – that's why the 12 hours is critical because after 12 hours you're not going to get absorption of the colostrum. The calf will have to digest it. There's still a lot of good energy in it, but the calf will not get immunity from it. That's why it's critical for that period if a calf's not nursing.

The producer needs to milk that colostrum out or give them some colostrum replacement. The colostrum replacement is not as good as the cow's colostrum, but it's still better than nothing. Do not give them milk or electrolytes because that's going to speed up that gut closure.

What's the most common gap in health programs that you see in cow-calf programs?

As a veterinarian, you have lots of different companies with a lot of assorted products to choose from. I always evaluated products on four criteria: efficacy, safety, convenience and price. Since COVID, I've added the fifth one, and that's availability. That probably goes to the top of the line now because if I can't get it, I don't care what it costs or how good it is, it doesn't matter.

After availability, the most important thing is efficacy because if I'm going to pay for a product, I want to use the best product. I'll pay more for a better product because especially with vaccines, it's like an insurance policy. There are some common vaccines out there that are for respiratory disease, and we give them to protect their fetus. They have no fetal protection. So, if your vaccine does not say, “helps prevent IBR abortion or persistent infection from BVD,” it's not protecting that fetus in the cow. It's only protecting the cow. It is especially important for producers to know what their vaccines are, and what they're going to protect.

It is like buying insurance and you lose your house due to a flood only to find out you don't have flood insurance. If you don't have fetal protection on your cow vaccines, it's not providing that for protection.

Let’s look at cow side of the equation. What can producers do to help protect cows from disease challenges and get them ready for breeding?

You have really two classes of vaccines: a modified live and a killed. If you're going to use the modified live, especially the first time you need to administer it before they're bred. The label may say 30 days, but I tend to push that out to 45. There's not necessarily any data, but I do know the egg in the ovary takes 42 days to develop. So, if I gave the vaccine 45 days prior, I feel more comfortable that I did not affect that at all.

It takes some planning ahead of time to properly vaccinate. I encourage my clients to do their bull breeding exams usually two months ahead of time. Then I would remind them to start their cow vaccines ahead of time. If you wait until you're ready to turn your bull out and do a breeding soundness exam, you have a problem. Then you're scrambling to find another bull. If you have 60 days, it's a lot better. As a producer, you need to recognize that your bull is just as important to getting your cows bred as your vaccination program is.

How does implementing a cow herd vaccination program set up the calf crop for future productivity?

Obviously, we have historic market prices. Our cattle are more valuable than they've ever been. I think they're more vulnerable than they've ever been. For a lot of reasons, I think the pathogens exposure to diseases that we deal with seem to be getting more difficult to control.

The cattle that we've selected strictly for reproduction and performance for the last 150 years, and we're starting to see some of the consequences on the health side because we've only selected for performance. We've done a tremendous job of making them grade and perform better, but maybe we need to concentrate a little more on the health side. That's a long-term process.

Again, it gets back to understanding the best products you can give your cattle and when the ideal timing is for vaccinating. A lot of times we give our vaccine when it's convenient, like when we wean them. That's probably the worst time to vaccinate them because they're stressed. It's better to do that ahead of time. Producers will want to vaccinate and build that protection before exposure and stress not during or even after. The timing is critical. The products used are also critical. You need to do everything you can. Nutrition is critical to year-round not just at any one certain time.

Beyond good nutrition and vaccination, is there any other strategy that could help improve reproductive efficiency at the cow herd level?

Yes. There are other reproductive products that we can use, and there are synchronization programs. A lot of people think, “I'm not AI-ing, so I don't need to synchronize my herd,” but that’s not true. You can synchronize your herd. I may have to increase my bull power right off the bat, but I can synchronize my herd because the more calves born in the first 30 days, the more profitable we are, so we can try to tighten up that calving window. There are products and some of them are as easy as adding MGA to the feed or adding Lutalyse to your pre-breeding vaccinations. That's not the best synchronization, but it's better than not synchronizing at all.

We have a lot of great technology, and there are a lot of options that you can talk to your Zoetis representative about. We're here to help because there is so much that producers must know about growing their pasture, growing their cattle, taking care of them and managing the business side. You can't be an expert at all of it, so let Zoetis help you explore the options.