Vaccination: Enormous benefits in biosecurity

How to decide whether to vaccinate your herd or not, writes Stephen Cadogan.

One of the advice pointers from the recent Gurteen share dairy farm open day at Bandon, Co Cork was that share farmer John Sexton purchased 40 in-calf cows and 60 heifers from four different herds, and to minimise the risk of disease, the animals came from herds that had a very good vaccination programme.

According to Animal Health Ireland, vaccination is part of a farm biosecurity plan, and should not be considered the sole component of the plan, but can result in enormous benefits on most farms, when appropriately applied.