Whether you are a pet owner, a breeder, or a farmer, it is your responsibility to ensure that your animals are vaccinated, adhering to the current recommended guidelines. Vaccinations work by exposing the immune system to an infectious pathogen, in order to protect the individual from developing the disease later in life. The important distinction between an infectious pathogen introduced through vaccination instead of being introduced naturally is that the pathogen is modified before vaccination, which prevents the individual from becoming infected and falling ill (or worse). It is therefore important that the necessary precautions are taken to give your animals the best chance in life.

The RSPCA website details all the vaccinations that should be considered for dogs, cats and rabbits, and full details can be found by clicking here. It is important that as many animals as possible are vaccinated to achieve what is called ‘herd immunity’, whereby enough individuals are protected from a specific infectious pathogen to allow those not vaccinated to obtain protection anyway. Vaccinations for dogs include (yet are not limited to) canine parvovirus and leptospirosis, and they may also require specific vaccinations dependent on their lifestyle (e.g. if they will visit countries overseas). Cats will need to be vaccinated against diseases such as feline herpes virus and feline calicivirus, whilst rabbits will need vaccinations against myxomatosis and Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease (RHD) (RSPCA). If you are in any doubt regarding vaccination, it is important to speak to a practitioner trained in this field.

However, it is important to not forget about vaccinating our farm animals, although the situation here is slightly more confusing. This article focuses on the vaccination of bovine tuberculosis (TB). It should be noted that The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) covers this subject in more detail, and can be found here. Although the main vaccination thought to be beneficial for cattle is a vaccine against TB, at the time of writing, this cannot currently be carried out ‘in the field’ for legal reasons, but instead in cattle already infected with this pathogen (DEFRA). A TB vaccine in cattle would likely contain Mycobacterium bovis (Bacille Calmette-Guerin), although this could be problematic when trying to distinguish cattle naturally infected with TB compared to cattle ‘infected’ with TB through vaccination. This issue needs to be resolved before vaccination can successfully be administered (DEFRA). Don’t forget that we run ultrasound cattle scanning courses that are approved by DEFRA using the Draminski iScan. For more information on either our training courses or the ultrasound scanner, please click on the relevant name above.

In sum, we have a responsibility to our veterinary companions to ensure they are well cared for and looked after. As well as ensuring that pregnancy is regularly monitored, and any potential problems are assessed more closely using ultrasonography, we must also ensure that all necessary vaccinations are given in a timely and suitable manner.