Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2009 9:15:38 GMT -5
I'm interested to hear what all of you do about vaccinations, and why. From the time we got our cows, I had been strongly in the "no vaccinations" club. I wanted to utilize good management practices to keep our cows healthy, and was concerned about the potential for vaccinations to change the purity of our milk and meat. We had Marigold tested for TB and Brucellosis before we brought her home, and felt comfortable drinking her raw milk because the tests were negative.
Now that I'm pregnant (and into my 3rd trimester already!) it seems that every week there's some scary new disease I learn about that *could* be transmitted through the cows, either by drinking raw milk or coming in contact with their urine or feces, that could have a significant negative impact on my growing baby. When we brought home our new cow Gwen (as we were drying Marigold off), we decided to have both tested for everything possible, just for peace of mind. We just got the bloodwork results back, and everything was negative except for a very weak positive for one of them (not sure which one yet) on leptosporosis. It was only one sero-bar out of six, and the vet said it could be a misread at the lab, or titration from a previous exposure. She wasn't at all concerned about me drinking the raw milk, regardless. However, she recommended vaccinating twice a year with a 9-way vaccination in order to prevent against future infection with lepto or any of the other common viruses. After reading up on lepto and finding out how easy it is for any animal to contract it, I'm very tempted to start vaccinating. However, I'm torn because this goes entirely against our whole idea of not pumping lots of vaccinations and medications into our animals. I'm not interested in pasteurizing the milk, as the whole reason we have the cows to begin with is to have clean, raw milk. What would you do?
Now that I'm pregnant (and into my 3rd trimester already!) it seems that every week there's some scary new disease I learn about that *could* be transmitted through the cows, either by drinking raw milk or coming in contact with their urine or feces, that could have a significant negative impact on my growing baby. When we brought home our new cow Gwen (as we were drying Marigold off), we decided to have both tested for everything possible, just for peace of mind. We just got the bloodwork results back, and everything was negative except for a very weak positive for one of them (not sure which one yet) on leptosporosis. It was only one sero-bar out of six, and the vet said it could be a misread at the lab, or titration from a previous exposure. She wasn't at all concerned about me drinking the raw milk, regardless. However, she recommended vaccinating twice a year with a 9-way vaccination in order to prevent against future infection with lepto or any of the other common viruses. After reading up on lepto and finding out how easy it is for any animal to contract it, I'm very tempted to start vaccinating. However, I'm torn because this goes entirely against our whole idea of not pumping lots of vaccinations and medications into our animals. I'm not interested in pasteurizing the milk, as the whole reason we have the cows to begin with is to have clean, raw milk. What would you do?