gcreekrch said:
FH, we were feeding a mineral but not the one we use now that is made specifically for our ranch. Copper was a lot lower and several other parts were out of whack. I think we're pretty close now.
At this years prices, the cost of 1 1/3 calves for the vaccine and the time to give it is pretty cheap insurance.
Oh, I most certainly agree. We used to give scour shots and were afraid
to stop, even though we hadn't had any problems since we got
on a year-round mineral program. The spring of 1997
we had a major spring storm and couldn't get the cows to the corral to
give the spring shot. That spring we had no problems so we quit the scour
shot.
Had that not happened we'd probably never have had the courage to stop
them on our own. We finally quit giving the coming 2-year olds the scour
shot too.
In fact, the only vaccine our cattle got were the calves at branding for blackleg and the cows a killed vaccine in the fall.
We gave nothing else and never had a problem. Of course, we did
pre-condition the calves in the fall for the buyer.
Just the other day, Mr. FH and I were talking about how long it had
been since we doctored anything for scours.
After all the sickness we put up with for 8 years, it was very much a relief to no longer have sick calves.
