Feedlot Medicine/Vaccination of Incoming Cattle

Abstract

Cattle of uncertain vaccination status, unknown exposure history, and usually in the incubation, subclinical or clinical phases of various viral and bacterial infections arrive at feedlots stressed by movements, reassembly and dietary changes. Respisatory disease constitutes about 85% of feedlot health problems. Despite major advances in vaccines and antibiotic drugs, respiratory infections have not been markedly reduced, and no final solution to feedlot pneumonias and their predisposing causes has been achieved. Thus, procedures for vaccinating the incoming calf are controversial, confusing, and to a large extent based on anecdotal and imperical arguments.