Calfhooding Heifers

Bonnie LarsonUncategorized

heifers1
We calfhood vaccinated our spring heifers yesterday. For the longest time, I didn’t know what that meant. But calfhooding is a vaccine given to heifer calves between the ages of 4 to 10 months to prevent brucellosis. While brucellosis has been eradicated from Iowa for some time, it is still recommended to vaccinate heifers. Calfhooding is required for selling cattle to some states and some sales require it as well. (I got all this information from our vet…thanks, Max!)

Now I still don’t know how they came up with the term “calfhooding” (I forgot to ask) so if someone could shed some light on that, that would be awesome.

heifers2
A vet must give the vaccine and then either tattoo the ear with this special tattoo or put an orange clip in the heifer’s ear to signify she has been vaccinated.

We always have a good time when we calfhood because our vet is fun to visit with. We cover a lot of topics, but almost always have a discussion about politics and religion. (Our views aren’t entirely in sync so it’s always fun to hear a different perspective.)

Hope your week is going well!