 Our next speaker is going to be Dr. Jerry Stucca. Jerry, I'm not sure how much of an introduction I dare give. I'd like to just continue on and say that Dr. Stucca is a native of North Dakota from Cooperstown, North Dakota. Practitioner in the Cooperstown Veterinary Clinic for quite a few years, Extension Veterinarian for Kansas State University, and now more recently a Senior Technical Veterinarian for Pfizer. Jerry's been very good in sharing knowledge and information and we just really appreciate him coming to date and speaking to us about vaccination strategies for cattle. So, Charlie, I mean, Jerry, for that, will you lead us off now? Very good, Carl. Thank you very much. I noticed, Carl, we have you on camera as we're sitting here and I noticed that you un-picked up a cookie, okay? And it was really good. I will tell you that Linda provided me with coffee here, but there was one little protocol break, I think. Carl comes over with a donut and doesn't share it with the rest of us. So all we have is coffee with no donuts. So anyway, somebody let me down on this deal, Carl. I just wanted you to know. So let's begin with a discussion. What I've tried to do here is be very focused on the topic. And you'll see as we go through this, I want to leave some time at the end for some perhaps specific questions. My first slide here, though, is just to remind me of a couple things. Number one, and I could ask this question, but because we're not in a live audience, I won't, but just to remind me that not every facility that is used for cattle is the same, okay? So this is a picture of an East River portable corral that sometimes we get faced with. Now, can they work? Yes, they can. But when we're vaccinating cattle, sometimes we need something that's even more secure and a little bit less stressful to the cattle. So I thought I'd begin there. Okay. What I've done here is title this vaccination colon. What the heck am I doing? Because I did this because I think this tends to be one of the most confusing topics for our producers that there is. And at times I would argue it's confusing for veterinarians. It can be confusing for me. Just simply because of the number of different products, the number of different infectious diseases that we're trying to prevent. And sometimes we ask ourselves, what am I doing? Do I need to do anything at all? And is there actually a little bit of a logic thought process to this whole thing? So that's what we're going to try and do. So we're going to talk about vaccinology and we're going to talk at the end a little bit about the applied side of this vaccination business. I'm going to start with this slide and I do this almost all the time. And it's to remind and Charlie referred to this too when he was talking about bedding. This idea of the herds that we have are under our care and we're responsible for taking care of them. And actually vaccination fits under this stewardship responsibility. So I just wanted to put that in there and remind everybody this is not just simply something we do that makes us feel better. It's something that we do to take care of our animals. All right. Okay. I've also put this slide in there to remind everybody of the priorities of vaccination. If we simply are looking to vaccination to provide us protection against infectious diseases and our cattle will always be healthy, we are sadly mistaken because on the priority scale, vaccination for me fits at the bottom. Unless I pay attention to all these other things in terms of herd health and my herd, I'm going to fail. If I haven't paid attention to genetics as applies to health, to nutrition as it applies to health, to this whole colostrogenesis, passive transfer immunity from cow to calf, and the other stressors that can occur on my operation and simply depend on vaccination, I'm going to be really, really disappointed. Okay. This next set of pictures is just to kind of give you a feel for what that previous slide might look like. Okay. I have to pay attention to the body conditions score that cow that's going through gestation. I need to be aware of how much stress is on those calves when they're born. I need to be aware, Charlie referred to this earlier, of the weather stress on critters. Can that make a difference in herd health programs? Absolutely it can. And many of us have changed our calving seasons to a time that's less stressful for those cows when they're calving. Is there a stress at weaning? Absolutely. Is there a stress at transportation? Absolutely. Is there a huge stress when we put different groups of cattle together that sometimes we don't think about at the ranch level? Absolutely there is. Okay. Is there a stress when we talk about specific pathogens like BVD and persistently infected cattle? Yes there is. Can there be a stress on animals in the way we actually process them and handle them? Yes there can be. And all of those things, it's just simply a collage of pictures to remind us that vaccination doesn't cover some of those things. It simply doesn't. And if we ignore them we're going to be disappointed with our herd health programs because we can end up with calves that somehow look like this at a young age. Or sometimes even more importantly they end up in the feed yard and those are the ones that get sick. So vaccination is an important piece but unless we're focused on the rest of this herd health program we're going to be disappointed. Okay. So what I'm going to do for the next few minutes is talk about three things. I'm going to talk about the philosophy of vaccination. I'm going to talk about the science of vaccination and we're going to end up with a little bit of the logic or the applied side of vaccination. I only have one slide that deals with the philosophy of vaccination and I've tried to keep it very simple. And if you'd asked me this 25 years ago I'm not sure I could have lined this out for you. It really comes down to three questions. It comes down to is vaccination necessary. In other words is there a reasonable risk that a pathogen exposure might occur that's going to result in either clinical disease to my cattle or some type of economic loss to me. And a lot of times I'll pick anthrax for example. Does every animal in North Dakota need an anthrax vaccine? Well probably not. In herds where there's a risk of anthrax is there enough of a risk to my herd that I need to employ anthrax vaccine? Absolutely. So that's the first question we have to ask ourselves. Is there a reasonable risk to my herd of a pathogen exposure that results in an economic loss. Number two and this is where your veterinarian in this whole philosophy of vaccination. This is why your veterinarian is so important to you because he helps determine what's necessary. He also helps to determine this next bullet point. Is there a vaccine that's actually been demonstrated to work? There are I would say literally a thousand different vaccines on the market. Do they all have the same effectiveness? Actually they don't. Your veterinarian helps you in deciding what's the most effective vaccine to use for a risk that I think it's necessary to vaccinate against. There's a little bit of an addendum to that effective part. And all of us end up in this thought process. There is best. There is less than best and there's better than nothing. And I'll share with you a trial after just a little bit that helps to illustrate this. You know the best vaccination strategy in many cases is one where we give a primary vaccine and then 21 days later give or take. We boost those cattle with a second vaccine. Do we always do that? No we don't. So sometimes we settle for less than best and actually sometimes we settle for better than nothing. But we have to be aware that we've perhaps increased the risk of economic loss when we choose better than nothing rather than best. The third question that we have to ask ourselves is there a safety issue? In other words, does the vaccine that we're injecting into these cattle, at least the ones that go under the scanner in the muscle, does it produce minimal tissue reactivity and is there minimum systemic reactions to the vaccine? So number one, is it necessary? Number two, is it effective? And number three, is it safe to use? Okay. Switch a little bit gears and talk about the science part of this. The term vaccination is an interesting term in itself. And it was derived from some of the first vaccine that was used in humans against smallpox. And the reason this term came to be was that they actually used cowpox virus to vaccinate humans against smallpox. And the Latin term for cow was vaca. So that's how we've arrived at this vaccination term. And really what we're trying to do with the use of this term and the use of vaccination is to expose that immune system to a disease causing pathogen. It might be a virus, it might be a bacteria, it might actually be something else like a protozoan organism. So that the immune system learns to recognize it more quickly and with greater immune activity that had not been previously exposed. That's all we're trying to do. And if I need to say something now so I don't forget to say it later on. Most of the time a vaccination or an animal that's been immunized is not protected against infection. But what we're hoping for is that it's protected against clinical disease, or sometimes even subclinical disease, or that we're reducing the amount of bugs it might be spreading to another animal in the herd. Okay. So when we inject an animal with a vaccine we call that vaccination. It's really important for us to remember that vaccination does not necessarily mean immunization. Okay. There's two things that are required for immunization to occur. And by immunization I'm talking about the idea that the immune system has responded and we're providing some level of protection to that animal against that specific organism. Immunization requires, and this goes back to philosophy, an actual effective vaccine, number one, and then it requires an animal that's what we call immunocompetent. And maybe a better term would be immunocapable. In other words capable of responding to that vaccine that I've put into that animal. Okay. So just because I vaccinate, just because I inject doesn't mean that immunization has occurred. So in order, like I said before, for vaccination to equal immunization it actually requires an immune response. And an easy way to think about this is that really there's three things that has to happen in that animal, in that animal's immune system, in order for this immunization or an immune response to occur. The animal has to actually recognize, and that's what that cognition means, has to recognize that there is a pathogen, either a pathogen has infected the animal, or that we've exposed that animal to a vaccine that has a pathogen at it. So recognition has to occur, the immune system has to be activated, and then finally there has to be an effect produced that actually provides some level of protection. I've put an image in the lower left-hand corner of that slide. It's actually a highly magnified electron micrograph picture of a dendritic cell, or what we would call a, I'll just call it a vaccine recognizing and activation cell. So when I give a vaccine to an animal, it's a cell like that, that all of you that are listening here today have those cells in your own body. That cell is critical to that animal that I pictured on the right being able to amount an immune response. If that animal is undergoing some type of stress in its life, whether it be heat stress, whether it be weather stress, whether it be commingling stress, whether it be BVD stress, that cell that's pictured in the lower left-hand corner does not perform as well as it needs to. And my immune response is going to be much less productive or much less protective than it should be. So another important little principle to remember in this science discussion is that it's complicated. I have made it sound pretty simple and it's actually much more complicated than that, obviously. And it takes some time. There are occasions where we might be able to get a somewhat of a protective immune response in as short as three days with certain modified live vaccines given in certain places. But ordinarily it's going to take longer than that, maybe seven to ten days and longer with naive animals. And by just using the term naive, it tells you that that's an animal that's not been exposed before. And really in order to hit peak immune response or peak protection, perhaps, it may take as long as two to four weeks. And this is why when we talk about animal health and immunization and vaccination, we desperately want those vaccines to be put into those animals two to four weeks at least prior to when we think some of this exposure may actually take place. Now, I recognize as well that in some cases in the middle of an outbreak, we actually go in and vaccinate animals and you might say, well, that's stupid. But what we're trying to do is protect those animals that perhaps haven't been exposed yet and we might be able to kind of shut down that outbreak of maybe pneumonia that's actually occurring. But in truth, you're a little late, okay? All right. Sometimes we talk about these, and I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on it, of giving multiple doses of vaccines. I mentioned earlier that we talk about booster doses of vaccines. When we're talking about booster doses, we, in many cases, we'll talk about a certain interval of time. It might be 14 days, might be 21, might be 28 days. And what we're simply trying to do is utilize that second dose to build that immune response to higher level and thus logically then perhaps providing a greater level of protection than simply that first dose can supply. And this is really critical when we're talking about killed vaccines. Most of the time we need that second dose to provide the level of protection that we're after, okay? And that second dose shortens the time and raises the level and hopefully reduces the amount of shedding that's occurring. There's one other dose of vaccine that we sometimes talk about, and that's just talking about revaccination, okay? I don't want to confuse the term booster dose and revaccination because sometimes they're a different thing. Sometimes we'll come into a group of calves maybe seven days after they've received the first dose. And especially in feedlot cattle, we might do this. We don't do it all the time, but we might. And that's what we're trying to do is provide a dose of vaccine to an animal that maybe didn't respond the first time because of too much stress in its system or because its nutritional level wasn't what it should be. And so we're just giving that animal a first chance to respond to a vaccine. So there's two different terminologies I'm using. One is revaccination, one is booster dose. And I think it's important to understand that there's a distinction between the two. Okay. So lastly, on this scientific discussion of immunology, immunization requires an effective vaccine and an animal that is capable of responding. We don't always follow that second one. If you read the label on vaccines, what do they talk about? Give this vaccine to what kind of an animal? Healthy animals, healthy, non-stressed animals. In many cases, we're giving it to animals on arrival at the feedlot and that's not what they are. They're stressed and they may not be all that healthy, okay? Okay. The next two slides kind of fits the second part of that philosophy discussion that we had. And I've just chosen this one trial to give you an idea of what an effective vaccine trial looks like. There have been many vaccine trials that have been done. Many of them are not very good. They're not very well-designed. They're not very applied necessarily. They don't always give us a good idea of whether a vaccine is effective or not. This one is very specific. This one is done to evaluate the effectiveness of different vaccines in pregnant animals and assessing whether that pregnant animal can be protected against BVD virus, okay? This is very specific, but I like this one because it was well done and gives us an idea of non-vaccinated versus three different vaccines, okay? Okay, so there's in this particular study, there's a control and those cattle receive no vaccines. The second treatment is a modified live. The third treatment is a modified, another modified live. And the fourth one was a killed vaccine. The second bullet point there where calves are vaccinated four times, that relates a little bit to best, less and best, and better than nothing. I would say this probably fits in the best vaccination strategy. If you follow along with the points here, these calves are vaccinated, weaning. And then four weeks later, it's what we call a booster dose. And then they were vaccinated again at a year of age and then again boostered four weeks later, okay? What they're trying to do in this trial is give the vaccines the very best chance of succeeding, all right? The next bullet point talks about how they, what we would call challenge the animals. How do they give BVD to these cattle? What they did is they found three persistently infected calves and for those of you that don't know what that means, it means that those calves have BVD in their system. They spread it, they shed it, and they're able to infect other animals that are pastured with them or housed with them and they will just spread that virus within that population. So they found three PI calves and they were infected with different strains of BVD and they put those calves in with those now pregnant heifers from day 68 to 126 days of gestation, okay? That's a perfect time to create what we would call a fetal infection in that pregnant animal that may result in a persistently infected calf or actually may result in an abortion. So let's just take a look at what happened with these pregnant heifers. The first thing they did was measure antibodies. And antibodies can tell us some things but there's some things that can't tell us. An antibody is just simply a way of sticking, I'll use this term, sticking a dipstick into an animal and kind of gives us an idea of whether the immune response or whether the immune system responded or not, okay? So what they did, they stuck the dipstick in these animals and they measured whether the animals responded or not. And sometimes companies can play games with this stuff and they'll tell you that if they have higher antibodies there's more protection versus those that have lower antibodies. It can work for some things, but for some viral infections it doesn't work very well because there's another arm of the immune system that this antibody-tighter test doesn't really tell us about. But let's look at this anyway. In this particular study, the Modified Live 2 group actually had the highest dipstick levels, if you will. The kill vaccine was second with the Modified Live 1 third in terms of ranking. Obviously the control cattle had no response at all because they weren't vaccinated. And that's well and good. It surprised me a little bit. I would have assumed that the kill vaccine was going to be actually number one. But let's perhaps look at some things that are more important to us. There's two things I want us to understand here. I already addressed this PI issue. When pregnant cows are infected with a virus, with a BVD virus, there are certain stages of gestation that calf now becomes infected and may actually be born alive and become what we've just talked about, this persistently infected calf. The viremia that they're talking about here, anytime you see the term emia, it means something's in the blood. So when we talk about a term called anemia or anemia, it means we're a little bit short of red blood cells. When we talk about viremia, we're talking about virus in the blood. So what they did, they measured whether PIs were produced out of these pregnant animals, and then they took a number of samples from these pregnant females and measured whether there was actually virus in the blood or not. Virus in the blood tells you that those animals were actually infected and so that the chances of a fetal infection increases quite a bit when you actually have virus in the blood. It doesn't always guarantee it, but it increases the risk to those fetuses that are developing inside that pregnant animal that an infection is going to incur. A couple really important things to look at here. Look at that control group. 10 out of 10 of those pregnant females, these were heifers, were viremic. In other words, they had virus in the blood which tells us that they're infected. And this tells us also that this was really a good test to indicate whether a vaccine was effective or not. There was also 10 PIs produced in that control group. Again, it gives us an idea of the amount of challenge and whether this is a good trial or not. In the killed vaccine group, there was 10 out of 20 of those females that were viremic. In other words, half of them. And that other stuff behind that 10 out of 20 just tells you what type of viruses they found. There were two animals produced that were PIs and two abortions. In the modified live two group, interestingly enough, that had the highest neutralizing antibody titer, there was one out of 20 that were viremic and there were two abortions. In the last modified live group, there were zero out of 20 that were viremic and that one abortion. What I understand from this study is that one abortion, they couldn't figure it, they were never able to determine what that abortion was due to, whether it was due to BVD or not. So, this is one of those studies that gives us this sense or gives us an idea of effectiveness of vaccine. If I didn't vaccinate for BVD in this particular situation, would I be in trouble? Yeah, it would be. If I use a kill, is that better than nothing? Yeah, it is. It absolutely is. But if I really want protection against BVD, I'm probably looking at this type of research, probably going to choose to give the modified live. Okay. To provide the best level of protection. So that, again, this kind of fits that, not necessarily the philosophy part, but the effectiveness part of a vaccine. Okay. There's one other thing I need to mention about this, because this can be so easily overlooked. And I'm convinced that sometimes even myself can become a little bit complacent about this. If somehow we abuse vaccines in terms of handling, if somehow we've maybe haven't checked the refrigerator temperature, or we're using them when it's too warm, or we're leaving some modified lives in direct sunlight, or we're still might be using disinfectants to wash out syringes that we use for modified live vaccines, we may have, instead of dealing with an immunocompetent animal, we have rendered the vaccine ineffective ourselves. So never forget this little detail that is so easily overlooked. Okay. What I want to finish with is just maybe some logic and application behind this whole thing. And this fits with the necessary part, I guess, of the philosophy of vaccination. What's really necessary in many beefers today? And I've listed some things here, some of which may or may not be necessary. From my viewpoint, the first two are necessary. In my mind, remember that the vaccines, it's very difficult to show or return on investment for vaccines. What they are really is crop insurance. Okay. And many guys that are involved in farming understand crop insurance better than I do. But vaccines tend to be the crop insurance for us in the beef business. I am willing to spend a little money to buy crop insurance for IBR and BVD. Those are my top two. Okay. Lepto. I'm still going to put Lepto in most of my cow vaccines because it's really difficult to control Lepto because it can be spread by other animals. Okay. Trick is very specific to certain areas. We can talk about tricking my eyes to the vaccine and I'd probably ask Neil a little bit more about that. And Vibriosis is one of those diseases, infectious diseases that we very rarely see anymore. The question becomes, if we all stop doing it, would it show up again? My answer is probably yes. Okay. So there's a little wobble here for me, but if you had me pick out the two most important, it's those top two. The three most important would be the top three. Okay. So how do we do this? And this goes again back to the best, less and best and better than nothing. So I'm talking about in Heffer's Modified Life Vaccination for IBR, BVD, pre-weening, weaning and pre-breeding. Seems like a lot. Okay. But remember in some cases, Heffer's are carrying some maternal immunity from the mother and maybe some of those doses that were given may not be as effective as they need to be. Lepto pre-breeding following a priming dose is the same with Vibrio. I'll go through these kind of rapidly. I think you guys have these slides. And your veterinary may not agree with me on this and that's certainly okay. I think I've tried to be pretty conservative in what I'm talking about here. Cowherd annual pre-breeding vaccinations with Modified Life, IBR, BVD, and that again inactivated Lepto and Vibrio. The only thing I'm going to mention here is some have adopted vaccination at PregCheck, okay, with Modified Lives. And what I should have done here is follow label recommendations and then had the exclamation point go off the page. Don't do anything other than follow label recommendations here because there is a risk if you don't of actually inducing abortions with those Modified Life IBR vaccines, okay. Many herds have gone to this and they've done so very successfully. But don't go off any label recommendations. Don't even go from one Modified Life to another, okay. And the same holds true if I've been on a kill program to a Modified Life. You have to go, you have to give those cattle and a pre-breeding vaccination with a Modified Life. We can talk about that later if we need to because that can be a little bit confusing, but please follow label recommendations. Herd bowls just kind of treat them like you would the cowherd. We get a little complacent with this, but herd bowls can be a source of some of these pathogens as well. Just finish up with the calves here. And I've tried to be pretty conservative here as well. Many of us vaccinate calves at branding. You know, and years ago, we just used to use 7-way clostridials or even just a 2-way clostridials. Most of us, because of some issues perhaps with some monies, have chosen to go with a Modified Life Respiratory Virus. In some cases, it can be an intranasal or perinatal. Pre-breeding, we come back perhaps with that same Modified Life Respiratory Virus, clostridial again and may or may not use manhimi and hemolytica. And there are some optional ones in here. I've listed histophilus, which used to be called hemophilus. In fact, it's histophilus somni instead of histophilus somnis. And then at weaning, come back again with that Modified Life. And you say, well, that's three Modified Life Respiratories. Yeah, but we're never sure of the percent of animals that have actually responded for various reasons. So it's maybe, I don't believe it's overkill. I believe many of these calves at that age need that type of protection. So it's pretty simple, pretty straightforward. What I've tried to do is think about things that I think are necessary. Think about vaccines that are effective and then apply some logic to this whole arena. Just finished with this summary slide and I'll just make one comment about the picture in the lower right hand corner. The title of what we've talked about today is Vaccination, What the heck am I doing? And I hope this makes a little bit of sense to it. The other thing I'm going to mention about this though is that those of us in the beef industry, I think we know it already. We're enjoying some really good prices for our product that we produce and it's a tremendous product. We also have to remember that we're in competition. We're in competition these days with the crop side of the business. And every acre that can be farmed in grown corn or soybeans and or weed on is going to be grown corn soybeans or wheat. We have to have this idea that we're good stewards but that we're also in a very competitive business, not just with other animal proteins, but with other crops as well. So we have to be as savvy as we can be. We have to be business minded. We have to be willing to adopt technology that we think can keep us in the game. So I hope this discussion was beneficial, Carl. And I'd be happy to take some questions. I probably went a little longer than I should have. Thanks, Carl. Thank you, Jerry. I have a quick question on... I'm a big fan of the intranasal vaccines but if you're giving the three-way intranasal vaccine and a modified live, is that duplicity or is that better than nothing? What's your viewpoint? So I think what you're asking me, Carl, is if I give the intranasal vaccine and then I give a five-way at the same time with some of the same antigens in that vaccine? Yeah, in my mind, it's a great question and I don't have a really good answer for you today. A number of people have done that and have not experienced any safety issues that I'm aware of. It makes me just a little bit goosey, okay? Because what you're actually doing, you're doubling up at least two pathogens at the same time in a dose of vaccine. Is it necessary, okay? I think that's the question to ask yourself. Is this absolutely necessary that I do this? No, I would say it's not. I would say most of the time we're doing this is a matter of convenience rather than whether it's necessary because the one part of that vaccine that's missing in that intranasal is BVD. If I feel strongly that those calves need that BVD, I can provide BVD all by itself. So sometimes it's a matter of convenience based on where we're getting the vaccine because they may not carry that straight BVD vaccine. Or sometimes, I don't know. It doesn't really fit my philosophy as being necessary is what I'm saying, Carl. Now, maybe a little bit twist on that would be can I give that intranasal vaccine and then come back sometime later with a booster dose on some of those antigens in a five-way. Yeah, I can do that. And then they might get the BVD at that time. This can be kind of a, not a complicated issue, but one that takes some explaining. But we actually did a trial at NDSU Streeter Station where we kind of did this. I'm talking about the booster side of it. Where we gave the intranasal of those calves at branding aids and then we came back 90 days later with a pre-weening vaccine and gave the five-way. And at least in terms of one of those antigens that we are interested in, the BRSV fraction, we saw a nice booster effect 90 days later from that first dose that they got at branding. So two different things, maybe, but personally, I would, if I wanted to give the BVD, I would give it individually. Waiting for questions from other locations, I'll ask another one. If you've got a producer that would normally have, they've vaccinated the calves at weaning time, it's January, it's time to booster them because they're not selling the calves until they're backgrounded, until maybe February or March. But the market price for calves are so good right now. The question is, rather than boosting them in February and January, they might just sell them. Where are they better off? To booster the cattle now before they go to market, they let the feedlot do the boosting. Yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of things wrapped up in your question there because we know, if you look at, if you look at these market data, when are the added values recognized for calves going to the marketplace? It's recognized primarily in the fall for calves that are fresh weaned or maybe not weaned. That's where those value-added vaccination programs come in. When we get with those same calves in January and February, they're older, they presumably, I can't remember the first part of your question, those calves are already weaned and been fed for some time. They've been vaccinated once already. Yeah, and they've been fed for some time or not. Yes, a month. They've been weaned. Yes, a month. So once you, if you look at the market data, at least that we have, once you get into that January, February, those calves almost get into a different category. It's not that they're yearlings yet, but they start reaching that yearling category and you don't see those same premiums that you saw earlier in the fall. So in that case, would it pay for him to vaccinate and realize a dollar or two per hundred weight over what he would get ordinarily? I think that's a stretch to be honest with you. I'm just kind of giving you my opinion on this one. Yeah, most of the time when those calves have been weaned at least 45 days, they're relatively bulletproof. And when they're older like that, they're even more bulletproof. Okay. Yeah, another question here. Is there a age requirement for the internasal at birth or three days, five days? We've heard different things. Yeah, that's an interesting question. And this vaccine that you're talking about, I think the one that you're talking about is IBR, PI3 and BRSP. There actually is no age requirement or restriction on that particular vaccine. Some, because of early respiratory issues, have actually chosen to give a vaccine at birth, recognize that in big herds, that's actually quite a bit of work, I mean, to get that accomplished, but some herds are actually doing it. And it's perhaps done more on the dairy side in some of these dairies where they've gone in right when they're born. There is no age restriction to your question. On the internasal, too? On the internasal. I was speaking strictly on the internasal product. Okay. Yup. If I had my choice between doing it right at birth within six hours or three days later, which would you prefer with the internasal? Or do I want to make it easier? Well, I would do it at birth. On a beef operation, I'd do it at birth. I wouldn't catch them anyway, but... Okay, give it two days because they're inside the barn because they wanted to run them to the barn. This relates actually back to the stress issue. When a calf is born, he's got a certain amount of cortisol. We'll just use cortisol as a proxy for stress. There's cortisol in that calf system. And so when he's actually born, the effects of that cortisol are at the actually lowest level, if you will. And for the next week or so, by seven days, he's kind of recovered. So if I just use that parameter in my decision-making model, I'd probably rather give it just right at birth. Okay. Once you start the one, two-day, three-days, that level of stress on his system becomes more profound, and he's actually less able to respond, is what I'm saying. Thank you. In that logic, that's my answer. From a practical standpoint, it wouldn't be, but... We had another question out in the... from another location, and the question... it kind of follows with this right after calving thing is... and maybe Charlie, if he hasn't left, he can answer it too, but how much claustrum is needed in a calf that hasn't had the opportunity to nurse? Say its mother died. How much claustrum should he get, and how late is too late before it's not worth it? Maybe you can summarize it quickly. I know it's a big question. It's actually one of my favorite topics. Have you got a couple hours? Is that a presentation? No, I'll try and answer this. We've got a whole box of cookies here. Let me try and put this in units that are maybe a little easier to understand, because we always think of volume. How much claustrum does it need? Well, within a certain volume of claustrum, in other words, the first milk that a beef cow produces, there's a certain amount of immunity laying in that volume. Okay? Mm-hmm. And it so depends on what the concentration of that immunity is within that certain volume. Do all cows have the same concentration of immunity in that volume? No, they don't. Tremendous variability. And there's tremendous variability depending on how that cow was handled. And then there's tremendous variability in the amount that the calf can absorb depending on how much stress is in the system. Okay? So it's been estimated that a calf needs somewhere between around 200 to 400 grams. So 400 grams would be approaching a pound of immunity, 200 would be about half of that much. Okay? Let's just use those numbers and think about this whole situation. Let's say that I've got a cow that within a leader or within a quart of claustrum has 50 grams of immunity. Okay? Well, if that calf needs 200 grams and everything is absorbed, he'd need what? Four quarts, right? That's kind of the really easy math of this thing. But what happens with those calves is that even though that cow has 50 grams in a quart, the absorption, the efficiency of absorption of that calf is not 100%. In fact, it may only be 35%. Or if you've got a lot of stress, it may be 20% or 10%. So that's why this question is really difficult to answer. Suffice it to say that in most calves, in most cases, a calf needs all it can get. In order to reduce the risk of that calf later in life becoming ill. All right? So, you know, what we sometimes get ourselves into, let's say the mother died and I've got a bag of whatever, you know, of the freeze-dried stuff. Okay? I'm going to mix that stuff up. One thing you've got to mix up the right amount at the right temperature. And in most of those bags of that stuff, you get what you pay for. The higher-priced stuff has approaching 100 grams. You've got to have something that's at least 100 grams. Some of it has even more, up to 125 or more. So if you've got a cow that's died and you have nothing else, don't go in and buy the stuff that's $8 to $10 a bag. Buy the stuff that's $20 a bag. You're at least giving yourself that calf a fighting chance of surviving. And actually I have some confidence in those products because I'm pretty certain they've saved calves' lives. Okay? But it just gives you an idea when I use that 200 and 400 gram thing of the fact that you're still short. Okay? But are they better than nothing? Darn right they are. Are they better than fresh colostrum that you might get from a cow that's in the same herd? Probably not. But they actually can be used as a supplement as well. So I know that's not the exact precise answer you're looking for, but it gives you an idea of trying to get that calf to the level where he needs to be so that he's not at as much risk of getting sick later on. Well now I just have to give you a choice, Jerry. We got a cow that just lost her calf. I mean the calf, excuse me, the cow died. The calf's alive. Do we give them a bag of this artificial colostrum mix of the high dollar 20 stuff right now when the calf is still wet at about 30 minutes of age, or do we wait six hours to milk out a cow because it's going to take me that long to find the cow that's got some colostrum and milk her out and share half and get it into the calf? Which is a better way to go? Yeah, from a very practical pragmatic standpoint you give that calf that high dollar mix is what you do. Right away. Yeah, yep. And then should you follow up another six hours? Sure. Yeah, I really would. This answer is depending on what the situation is. If he's able to get a cow with fresh colostrum, yeah that works too. But yes, in most cases you need to follow up with more because it's usually not enough. I know that's kind of a complicated answer and sometimes it requires a specific case with a very specific management to give you a specific answer. Carl, this is another answer that requires a dipstick answer. Because you can actually stick a dipstick into a calf and measure the amount of immunity he's absorbed. And what this literature kind of tells us that unless that calf is at the full mark, he's at a greater risk of getting sick later on. That's why this is such an important issue. Yep. From the immunological standpoint, not to mention the nutrients needed just to keep the animal alive growing. You have a couple of questions. Good. The first question is concerning the cow herd. If you have a producer who has had, say a closed cow herd for the past 10 years, meaning through the use of AI, we haven't brought any new cattle in, new cows or bulls. Are breeding vaccinations, are they still necessary or are important to give to the cow herd? Remember that you're buying crop insurance. Is there a chance that even, unless you have a cow herd into a barn and have biosecurities coming in and going out, I'm not sure there is such a thing as a closed herd. It really isn't. Now, perhaps some places in the country where we have no animals close by, you could argue that there is. Would I still think in a closed herd situation there is a risk of IBR and BBD? And certainly, lepto, I don't know how you keep transmission of lepto out. So in your specific case, I would still be willing to buy crop insurance. I really would, because I don't know what the downside is because the price of crop insurance for those pathogens is pretty darn cheap. It's probably around $1.50 maybe per cow per year, maybe $2.00, I don't know exactly, but that's pretty cheap crop insurance. Okay, then I've got one more question here. When is the best time to give seven-way shots to calves? Is it at birth or two to three months of age? And does it stress the calf too much to give it at birth or within a few days of birth? This goes back to the first part of that philosophy. Is it necessary? The only way I would say it's necessary to give a calf a vaccine at birth is because I've had a specific issue with a specific pathogen early in that life of that calf that doesn't allow me to come in there later on and vaccinate for that very specific issue. Some guys vaccinate with seven-ways of birth because they have an issue with an organism called clostridium perfringence early in the calf's life. And so sometimes they've adopted that strategy and that makes sense to me because anecdotally and observationally it seems like it's made a difference in some of those herds. On the other hand, if I'm really trying to protect against what we would call black lake diseases that occur most often in pasture situations, I would say, I'm going to wait a little bit later in that calf's life when it's better able to respond to that vaccine. It's not a... that's kind of a general answer to your question, but I'm going to try and time that vaccine to when it's most necessary to give when I can get the greatest protection. If I'm putting a vaccine into a calf at birth and expecting that protection to last me for several months, maybe even as long as six months, I think that's asking too much. Carl, we have one quick question here at LeMore since you seem to have kind of taken up all of our time. No. I want Jerry to answer or make the decisions for you on your own herd there, but no, actually the question we had is like on the modified live. Now, you fill up a syringe. You're doing a number of cows, you know, eight, ten at a time. You lay it down on the back of the tailgate of the pickup or whatever, and it's in the direct sunlight. How long will that virus stay alive in a scenario like that? You know, and Neil may actually have a better answer than I do, but just remember that it's not like it's zapped with a radiation where it kills everything all of a sudden. Okay? You're just slowly... Even if I take virus and mix it up into a vial and have it in a cooler, am I losing live viral particles? Yeah, I am. And we hasten the survival... We hasten the demise of those viral particles when we put it in the sunlight. So you're just killing them that much faster. And I don't know... Yeah, I think that's right. It's a gradual thing. Yeah. So the answer is don't do that, okay? Mix up what you need for no more than an hour at a time. I know it's kind of... We all get in this situation when we're rolling through the cattle. The guy's bringing the cattle up, seeing you mixing up vaccine. They start grousing at you a little bit. But don't mix up so much just to stay over lunch or stay... You know, just don't do that. And this sunlight issue is a big deal. Have that Styrofoam cooler with holes in the top, so you can stick the syringe in there and protect it from sunlight. It's not that difficult to do. Thanks. One more question? Okay. Once you mix up about a 50-dose vial of modified live, how long should it be until it's used up? And most of the time that works. Most of us would, unless you've got facilities like I showed you at the front there, we should be able to work 50 head in an hour. But, you know, again, it doesn't just die all off in an hour, either. If you end up with an hour and a half or two hours and you've kept it cool, it's still going to be okay. But just kind of a rule of thumb, use what you can in an hour. What's stuck inside your shirt pocket, though? It depends on how cold you are. Good point. You know, those Styrofoam coolers, if it's 30 below out, you know, having a... I mean, they get cold inside, too, and sometimes too cold, so sometimes you have to have a little warm... bottle warmer, whatever. What am I trying to say here? Those little bags. Just to keep it at a temperature that's more conducive to that vaccine. When it's warm out, we put cooler packs inside there. It's not difficult, and it's not like if it reaches 50 degrees or 60 degrees inside, all of a sudden everything's dead. That's not the case, but just the idea of controlling temperature to maximize the survivability of those viral particles until you get them into the animal. The same holds true on killed vaccines as well, though. If he's a killed vaccine, is that vaccine still good? Probably not. Because we've kind of broken those antigens up into different pieces. It's a different vaccine going into that animal than if it had not been frozen. So, yeah.