Grace Green;

Gosh that pouring medicine down their backs for lice.
If you have the vet come to vaccinate, he will, also bring the worm medicine, and he will bring the lice medicine that you pour down their backs too. He will do it all, except of course catch them up.

Lice, When the hair grows long in the fall and winter, lice love it. By late winter, some times; lice gets really bad and the cows can even lose all of their hair in spots. It also seems to be only the lactating cows, and never the calves or bull. I often wonder if having to make milk for a baby calf just takes something out of them and dampens their ability to fight off lice. It is not a pretty sight to see actual naked skin in cold weather, and worrisome that they might get frost bit in those naked areas. When warm weather returns though, the hair sheds along with the lice. Some years it is not bad at all and some years it is really bad. Why, I don't know, maybe it is the years they don't have calves in the winter?

Linda;

It all depends on the region of the United States, of what kind of vaccines are needed for the cattle.
For my area, what we lose the most are young cattle to is a type of tetanus called black leg. If they are going to catch it, it is when they are about a year old, when the calf begins to eat a lot of grass to put on a lot of weight and muscle bulk. If during this time of putting on all that bulk happens during the spring, or fall, or during a time of little rain fall (dirt is more exposed) they might get tetanus. We always kept our calves up to a year instead of the usually six months, but all are still on their mother's milk, and never vaccinated. I think it helps a lot that they are still on their mother's milk, though it might be rather hard on the cow and saps her energy, it does make the cows slower about breeding back. By not vaccinating we have only lost one big bull calf, and a heifer we were going to keep to tetanus black leg.

When we take our crop of calves to the market, we always told them that they were not vaccinated. We did not have to have a certificate of we did or did not do, but we sign a paper stating that we did not vaccinate. Sometimes I wonder if when the vet comes by on those days that the stock market is accepting cattle. and will nilly vaccinates everything in sight for a lot of other things and well it is all pretty much on the honor system. Most of the calves that at one year old and really big are still bought by other farmers to be put on pasture and feed to get them past that bulk stage, feed lots for some; I suppose.

Leptospirosis is another one they vaccinate against in breeding cows since it is carried back and forth from deer to cattle and causes the cows to abort, but without vaccinating; they will get over it anyway, there is just not a calf for that year and that is a lose to the farmer.

Not all vaccines for the same thing are alike. I stopped off at the vet and asked for a vaccine last winter for a calf we are keeping to make a heifer out of. The vet gave me two big vials, one was for worms. We have a young man that is renting land from my father to put his cattle on, and part of the deal is helping my son with his small herd, and both have formed a friendship. . This young man goes to the farm store and buys his black leg vaccine. The drawn vial from the vet's office was really large, and did not look at all what the farm store's vials looked like. When it came time to vaccinate, my son and this young man ended up throwing the vet's vials in the trash and going to the farm store together to buy the usual stuff. This young man is using another vet from a different county cause he says our county's vet has a tendency to kill all his cows. He is so funny, such a hard worker, but like all of the young men around here, anymore; highly anxious. There is that under current of damage in every one at that age, left over from their childhood vaccines.

The two of them got their heifers vaccinated, and let them both out with the rest of the cattle to put on all that weight during a rather wet summer.

So apparently, all vaccines for the same disease are not exactly alike, or the amount?

My dog is getting better, after four rounds of fever/antibiotics, following a rabies vaccine. I sure hope she grows some more fur and hair; or I am going to have to knit it a coat for her this winter. This is the same vet. He gives a rabies vaccines that is now required every year, and if a dog comes in; it is getting it. This is also the same vet that says the MMR gave his beautiful daughter chrons disease. And told me the same thing that an anti vaxxer would say; that a lot of these things they vaccinate for is easy childhood diseases that they will get over, and the other stuff antibiotics will take care of, with out the damage that vaccines cause. It is a complicated world.

They will never be able to vaccinate their way out of not using antibiotics in animals; cause they need more antibiotics after they are heavily vaccinated for the most part.

Whenever I feel up to or in need of eating meat, it's hard to want to consider eating anything raised constantly on antibiotics, or vaccinated (where do they administer those vaccines?)...

...but the discussion in this publication is enlightening.

Prince Charles is successfully using homeopathy on his cattle to minimise the use of antibiotics, that would rule out the placebo effect as the animals haven't got a clue what he's up to.

Unfortunately if it can't be patented then industry will say it can't possibly work.

By the time an animal shows signs of illness that are apparent to us humans, it is so bad off that it is either going to die, or might be saved with antibiotics. I don't see farmers giving up the gift of antibiotics even when the government and the veterinaries organizations pushes for more what- cleaning procedures?

But practices of cleaning procedures have been going on for a long while, and I know my grandfather and uncles followed them all like a religion. Are the younger farmers doing this?

My Grandpa, would not allow anyone to step into his hen houses without first stepping in a pan of lysol. He sure made his farm hands started picking up their pop bottle caps where they took their breaks from grading and candling eggs, after a cow got sick from eating them.

Fast forward to present day; and the series that high lights hoarders has no problem finding the mentally ill that hoards, but are instead overwhelmed by people calling in with candidates for their show. When they film these hoarders homes and apartments, it becomes obvious that is more than hoarding, that is the issue, but actually it is issues of cleanliness.

If you get this behavior in people that owns and runs dairy farms, beef farms, hogs, eggs along with veggie farms; the first thing you know we can't even safely buy heads of lettuce, not shredded lettuce, but "actually heads" of lettuce with out getting sick. Oh, wait; that has already happened.