Which Vaccines Does Your Cattle Herd Need, and When?

Most cattle herds in the UK build their vaccination programme around a short list of core diseases: BVD, leptospirosis, IBR, calf pneumonia, calf scour and clostridial disease, with others added where a farm's history or risk calls for them. Industry guidance sorts cattle vaccines into two tiers. Category One vaccines are the default for most herds unless you and your vet agree a clear reason to leave one out, and Category Two vaccines are best practice used where your herd's risk justifies them. Which vaccines your cattle actually need, and exactly when each dose goes in, depends on whether you're running dairy or sucklers, how you source replacements, what's grazing next door, and what's gone wrong on the farm before.

The Vale Veterinary Group works with beef and dairy herds across Devon, and our first question is never which vaccine to buy, but what your cattle are genuinely exposed to. Our beef herd health programmes look at BVD, IBR, lepto and the other risks on your farm, so what you vaccinate for rests on your own results and history. On dairy units we build the programme into the routine herd health visits you already have, timing boosters around service and calving. If you're not sure your current cover still matches the way you farm, talk it through with us.

What Your Herd's Vaccine Plan Really Hinges On

• Category One vaccines, including BVD and leptospirosis, are the default for most herds, and leaving one out should be a deliberate decision you review regularly with your vet.
• Category Two vaccines, such as salmonella, ringworm, mastitis and lungworm, earn their place on farms with a history of the disease or a clear risk of it.
• Dairy herds, suckler cows, suckler calves and growing cattle each need a different set of vaccines, so one list rarely fits a whole farm.
• Timing carries as much weight as the product, and doses pinned to service, calving, housing and weaning hold up far better than doses pinned to a date in the diary.

How Are Cattle Vaccines Prioritised?

UK livestock vaccination guidelines split cattle vaccines into two categories. Category One covers the highest priority diseases, where herds should be vaccinated by default unless you and your vet identify and record a clear reason not to. Category Two covers vaccines recommended as best practice, with room to use them depending on each farm's risk.

Neither category is a fixed prescription. A closed dairy herd with a clean BVD history and a suckler herd buying in store cattle every autumn can both be following the guidance and still end up with quite different programmes. What matters is that every vaccine in, and every vaccine left out, is a choice made on purpose.

How Does Your Farm's Risk Shape the Programme?

A programme built around your own farm starts from a picture of your risk rather than a product list. A preventive herd health programme begins with the specifics of your unit: herd size, whether you breed replacements or buy them in, what shares a boundary fence with your cattle, and what went wrong in previous seasons.

A handful of questions settle most of the plan:

• What comes onto the farm: bought-in cattle, hired bulls and returning show stock are the commonest way BVD and IBR arrive.
• What's next door: cattle touching noses over a boundary fence, shared watercourses and sheep on the same ground all count as exposure, and sheep can carry the strain of leptospirosis that affects cattle, which is why mixed units benefit from flock health planning alongside the herd plan.
• Where replacements come from: a closed herd breeding its own heifers carries a different risk from one buying twenty in-calf heifers every autumn.
• What's already gone wrong: an abortion storm three years back, a run of sudden deaths at grass, or a bad winter in the calf shed tells you what this farm is prone to.

Replacement heifers need their own line in the plan. They have the least immunity and meet the herd's infections for the first time, often in the same fortnight they're being served, so their primary courses need finishing before breeding. Bulls get overlooked more than any other group, which is odd for one animal in contact with every cow you own.

We write farm-specific herd health plans for units of every shape, from large dairies to a few sucklers on rented ground, and smallholders get advice tailored to herds of every size, because risk doesn't shrink just because the numbers do.

Which Vaccines Should a Dairy Herd Consider?

Most dairy herds should be vaccinating against BVD, leptospirosis, calf pneumonia and calf scour, along with IBR in regions where it circulates, which covers most of the country. Salmonella, ringworm, mastitis, lungworm, clostridial disease and arboviruses such as bluetongue are added according to herd history and risk.

Category One Vaccines for Dairy Herds

IBR programmes are the most herd-specific of the five. IBR in cattle goes latent in animals that recover, so carriers can start shedding again under the stress of calving or mixing. Live intranasal vaccines give fast protection in the face of an outbreak, and they can also serve as a first priming dose followed by an injectable vaccine for longer-lasting immunity. Protection can last anywhere from three to twelve months depending on the approach and the level of challenge, which is why booster intervals get set herd by herd.

Leptospirosis risk peaks in spring and wherever cattle can reach watercourses, which is why getting breeding animals covered before turnout matters. It can also pass to the people handling cattle, so keeping an eye on herd status is worth the effort. The scour vaccine protects against rotavirus, coronavirus and E. coli K99, but only if calves get enough good colostrum early, so it works hand in hand with your colostrum routine.

Category Two Vaccines for Dairy Herds

• Salmonella: For herds with a history of salmonellosis, which is often underdiagnosed and can pass to people. A two-dose primary course, given 21 days apart, goes to heifers and the adult herd, sometimes with youngstock vaccinated too, and boosters follow at no more than 12 months.
• Ringworm: For herds with signs of ringworm or a clear risk of it. The whole herd starts with two doses 10 to 14 days apart. After that, closed herds usually only need to vaccinate young calves at around two weeks old, with a second dose 10 to 14 days later, plus a full course for any new arrivals.
• Mastitis: For herds struggling with mastitis control. Vaccines can reduce how often, and how severely, mastitis caused by Staphylococcus aureus, coliforms and coagulase-negative staphylococci shows up, with a separate vaccine for Streptococcus uberis. Our mastitis consultancy helps decide whether a vaccine fits alongside the rest of your control plan.
• Lungworm: For herds with a history of lungworm in young or adult cattle. Calves need to be at least eight weeks old for the first dose, with the second four weeks later, and they shouldn't be exposed to lungworm for at least two weeks after that.
• Clostridial disease: For herds with unexplained sudden deaths in healthy-looking cattle, especially near riverbanks or disturbed soil. Two doses at least six weeks apart start the course, with boosters every six months for continuous protection, or annually where there's no winter risk period.
• Arboviruses: Bluetongue and Schmallenberg are likely to become bigger threats as the climate changes, and vaccine availability has varied over the years. Bluetongue vaccines need two injections three weeks apart, so full immunity can take up to six weeks. Schmallenberg vaccine can be used from 14 weeks of age and protects for up to six months, covering the window in pregnancy when calves are vulnerable, roughly days 70 to 150.

Which Vaccines Should a Beef Herd Consider?

Beef programmes are easiest to plan by group, because suckler cows, their calves and growing cattle face different risks at different times of year. BVD, leptospirosis and clostridial disease form the core for suckler cows, pneumonia and clostridial cover for calves, and clostridial and IBR cover for growing cattle, with other vaccines added by risk.

Suckler Cows

Heifers and young bulls should complete their BVD and leptospirosis primary courses before their first breeding season, with older cows and breeding bulls boosted as the data sheet directs, annually in the case of lepto. The two can often be given on the same day at different injection sites. Monitoring your BVD status every year through a CHeCS-accredited scheme confirms the programme is holding, and as BCVA-trained BVDfree advisers, it's familiar ground for us.

Clostridial cover is usually an annual booster before calving, building on the primary course given as youngstock. Cows with an unknown history need a full primary course of two doses four to six weeks apart.

Where IBR is a risk, a live intramuscular vaccine can be given to heifers once they're selected for breeding, from three months of age, repeated six months later and then annually. A scour vaccine given between three months and three weeks before calving protects calves against rotavirus and E. coli, as long as each calf drinks enough colostrum.

Suckler Calves

For pneumonia, a single intranasal RSV vaccine given to calves over three months old before weaning or housing is often the most practical option, though others exist depending on your history. RSV is often combined with PI3 cover, and an intranasal IBR vaccine gives the quickest immunity before housing or weaning. Where Mannheimia is a problem, a combined vaccine with RSV and PI3 needs two injections three to four weeks apart, with immunity two weeks after the second dose, so timing it ahead of housing or weaning matters.

Calves from vaccinated cows get roughly 12 weeks of clostridial protection from colostrum. The tricky part is fitting the two-dose primary course, four to six weeks apart, into the summer grazing period while their mothers are with the bull, so it's often left until autumn when the risk allows. Ringworm vaccine, where it's needed, goes to cattle over four months old as two doses 10 to 14 days apart, with no boosters required.

Growing and Finishing Cattle

Cattle that completed a clostridial primary course as calves need a single annual booster, while those with an unknown history should repeat the primary course. A live intranasal IBR vaccine gives the fastest cover, which suits bought-in stores arriving close to housing.

Mannheimia haemolytica vaccine can be given as a single injection with cover lasting up to 17 weeks. Lungworm vaccine suits susceptible cattle, often weaned calves heading into their first grazing season, as two oral doses four weeks apart before turnout. Avoid wormers during that period and for two weeks after the second dose, since they can stop the vaccine working.

Why Does Timing Matter as Much as the Vaccine?

A vaccine only protects if it goes in early enough for immunity to build before the risk arrives, and that usually takes two weeks or more. Sound vaccination strategies for cattle finish primary courses two to three weeks ahead of breeding, housing, weaning or transport, so a dose given the same week cattle are mixed asks more of biology than it can deliver.

Vaccination timing across the breeding year works best when doses are pinned to events rather than dates: BVD and lepto ahead of service, scour vaccines timed to load colostrum, and pneumonia courses finished before calves are weaned or housed. Young calves add one more wrinkle. Antibody from colostrum guards a newborn early on, and while it's still circulating it can block the calf's own response to some injectable products, which is why intranasal vaccines often suit the youngest calves better.

When a programme seems to fail, the vaccine is rarely the problem. A respiratory vaccine programme most often comes apart at the second dose, and vaccine failure in beef cattle usually traces back to a warm cool box, a dose given after exposure had already happened, or a booster that never got drawn up. Keep product between 2°C and 8°C, make up only as much live vaccine as you'll use within the hour, change needles regularly, and follow the data sheet for dose, route and booster interval. Half doses don't stretch a bottle. They produce half-protected cattle.

If you send us your calving and breeding dates, we can map vaccine timings onto the jobs already in your diary so nothing needs a second gather.

How Often Should You Review Your Vaccination Programme?

Review your programme at least once a year, and any time you change how you farm, buy from a new source, take on new ground or have a disease problem. Under the guidance, any decision to leave out a Category One vaccine should be revisited regularly, and a Category Two vaccine that made sense three years ago may no longer be needed, or the reverse.

Good records make the review possible. Note the batch number, date, dose, route and who gave each vaccine, so a run of pneumonia in one group can be traced back to what actually went into those calves. Two points in the year make natural review dates: after calving, when abortions, weak calves and scanning results report on the reproductive side, and after weaning, when the calf shed reports on the respiratory side. Wider vaccine use in livestock is also one of the clearest routes to cutting antibiotic use on farm, because cattle that don't get sick don't need treating.

Most of these decisions get made during on-farm herd visits, standing in the shed looking at your cattle. If something starts going wrong between visits, ring the branch that covers your farm. We're on call for registered clients around the clock.

What Devon Farmers Ask Us About Herd Vaccination

Can I vaccinate cows who are already in calf?

Cows already in calf can be vaccinated with plenty of cattle products, though some aren't licensed for pregnancy and a few live vaccines carry specific warnings. The data sheet is the authority. Many programmes deliberately include doses in late pregnancy, because a cow vaccinated at the right point puts more antibody into her colostrum, which is where a newborn calf gets almost all of their early protection.

Do bought-in cattle need doing if the seller says they're covered?

Bought-in cattle still need doing unless the seller can give you dates, product names and batch numbers. A verbal assurance isn't a record, and cattle often turn up part way through a course nobody finished. Quarantine buys you the window to test, complete the course or start again, and a few weeks of separate grazing costs far less than letting IBR or BVD into a settled herd.

Is it worth vaccinating a small herd or a few house cows?

Vaccinating a small herd or a few house cows is usually worth it, because small numbers don't mean small risk. Cattle on rented ground may share a fence line with a much bigger neighbouring herd, and one abortion in eight cows costs a far greater share of the year's calves than one in eighty. Smaller units also tend to buy replacements rather than breed them, the commonest route for infection to arrive anywhere.

Setting Your Herd's Vaccine Dates for the Year Ahead

The worst moment to discover your vaccine cover didn't match your risk is halfway through a calving block, with abortions arriving and nothing left to change. A quiet hour before the busy season, with your herd's history, your buying plans and your service and calving dates on the table, is enough to sort which Category One and Category Two vaccines your cattle need and when each dose should go in. No two herds we visit in Devon carry quite the same risk, even along the same lane.

If your current programme was set up years ago and hasn't been looked at since, book a pre-season planning visit and we'll go through it with you before the next round of service and calving dates comes around.