Vaccinating feeder cattle against respiratory disease before they enter the feedlot has become the biggest change in feedlot cattle health in Australia and is paying off for lotfeeders, speakers told the BeefEx 2026 conference, Beef Central's Lydia Burton reports.

JBS was the first major company in Australia to make pre-vaccination against bovine respiratory disease (BRD) a condition of entry, at its three New South Wales yards. Five years on, all Angus cattle in its five Queensland and NSW yards arrive vaccinated with Coopers Bovilis MH+IBR, and the company aims eventually to have every animal pre-vaccinated. Earlier this year Beef Central reported that 70 to 80 percent of feeder cattle of susceptible breed types may now receive the protection.

Dr Tony Batterham, feedlot R&D programme manager at Meat & Livestock Australia, said BRD deaths had fallen by 50 percent while the number of cattle on feed grew by half over the past decade. "What you would normally expect is the morbidity and mortality to go with the rising number of cattle on feed, but it's actually gone in the opposite direction," he said. The vaccine works best, he added, when all susceptible cattle in a yard are vaccinated.

Caitlin Herbert of Gundamain Feedlot at Eugowra, NSW, said her yard does not mandate pre-vaccination but offers an incentive, and re-vaccinates every animal on day 13 after arrival. Buying smaller mobs of more susceptible southern cattle, many from saleyards, carries higher BRD risk, and the approach has been "an absolute game changer", she said.

Edwin Cooke, livestock general manager for JBS's northern division, said fewer sick cattle frees pen riders for other work and helps in a costly business: "Cattle prices are at a record high... grain prices are reasonably high, labour's high, everything's high."

Herbert added that pre-vaccination also supports antimicrobial stewardship, because well-prepared cattle need fewer treatments in the first place: "For us, antimicrobial stewardship is about prevention."

Photo: Cgoodwin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Source: Beef Central