Do You Use mRNA Vaccines on Your Cows?
I’ve been getting this question a lot, lately. The short answer is: NO, we do not use mRNA vaccines on our cows.
If you want more information about how we keep our herd healthy, keep reading… this one will be kind of nerdy but hang in there!
We don’t use mRNA vaccines (more on that later)… but we do use one vaccine that we have been using for many years to keep our young cows healthy and safe from an organism that is ever present in the soil.
There is a spore-producing bacteria called Clostridium chauvoei that is found in the soil just about everywhere in North America. This bacterial strain causes rapid death by blackleg disease in otherwise healthy young cattle, generally when they are 1-2 years old. There is no cure. And there is no way to eradicate the bacteria from the soil.
The only way to protect livestock from blackleg disease is to vaccinate them. We use a killed-culture vaccine that has been around for decades and have good success with protecting our herd; we have no intention of changing it.
But what about mRNA vaccines?
To set the record straight, there are no mRNA vaccines approved for use in cattle in North America, nor are there any available for cattle owners to use.
I don’t know what will happen in the future, or what other countries will be doing for livestock management, but I know that our farm doesn’t have any need to use other kinds of vaccines.
This little girl is one day old!
Here’s why: Our herd is self-sustaining.
In other words, the animals on our farm spend their entire lives here, up until the time of processing. Our mother cows were born here and they are producing the young animals whose purpose is beef production. When a mother cow gets too old to safely have calves, she is replaced by a female calf that was born on our farm. The only cow that comes from outside of our farm is our one bull, and we purchase him from registered breeders every 10 years or so. This means that our herd has its own immunity to the organisms that are common to our farm.
By keeping a generational herd that has it’s own immunity, we aren’t introducing disease-causing organisms that the herd isn’t immune to. So, we don’t need to use much of anything to keep our animals healthy.
(By the way, we don’t use antibiotics for the same reasons. You can read about that in this blog post.)
Here she is with mom.
By purchasing beef from us, you know where your beef comes from! And you know what’s in it (nothing!).
Still have questions? Send me an email: summer@thefarmsathickoryflat.com