There is a version of this question that gets asked in every rural supplies store in the country: what do I actually need to give them? The honest answer is that a small herd needs less than the shelf suggests and more thought than the label gives you.
This is a plain-English map of the territory — what the vaccines cover, what the drench groups do, and which decisions genuinely turn on where you live and what you are running. It is not a herd health plan. Dosing must come from the current product label, and the decisions that matter should be made with a vet who knows your district.
The one vaccine nearly every Australian herd gets
Clostridial vaccine is the closest thing to a universal baseline in Australian cattle. The clostridial bacteria live in soil and in the gut of healthy animals, and the diseases they cause tend to kill quickly enough that treatment is rarely an option. Vaccination is cheap. The alternative is finding a dead animal.
5-in-1 covers five: enterotoxaemia (pulpy kidney), tetanus, black disease, malignant oedema and blackleg.
The schedule from the Zoetis Ultravac label — other brands differ, so read the one in your hand — is a first dose at around six weeks of age and a second four to six weeks later. A booster twelve months after that basic course is stated to give lifelong immunity to blackleg and tetanus, but annual boosters are still needed to hold cover for black disease and malignant oedema, and more frequent dosing may be needed for enterotoxaemia ahead of a risk period. Breeding cows are usually boosted about four weeks before calving so the calf gets protection through the colostrum.
For cattle of any age that have never been vaccinated, the rule is the same as for calves: two doses, four to six weeks apart. A single shot is not cover. This is the most common mistake made with bought-in stock of unknown history.
5-in-1 or 7-in-1?
The difference is smaller than the names suggest, and it is not two more clostridial diseases. 7-in-1 is the same five clostridials plus leptospirosis — Leptospira Hardjo and Pomona.
That matters for two reasons. Lepto causes abortion and calf losses in breeding herds, so the case for 7-in-1 is strongest if you are calving. And lepto is a zoonosis — it infects people, and the people most exposed are the ones handling calving cows and urine in a milking shed. On a small block with a house cow, that is you.
If you are running steers to a paddock weight and never breeding, 5-in-1 is a reasonable choice. If there is a calf on the ground or planned, the extra few dollars for 7-in-1 buys something real.
The vaccines that depend on where you are
Everything past the clostridials is triggered by geography or by enterprise, not given as a matter of course.
Botulism is a northern problem above all. Meat & Livestock Australia describes it as probably the biggest single factor in breeder mortality across northern Australia, where phosphorus- and protein-deficient country leads cattle to chew bones and pick up the toxin. Outbreaks do still occur in southern grazing systems, dairies and feedlots. A three-year product exists — a single 2 mL dose with a booster at three years in endemic country, annually outside it.
Tick fever (babesiosis and anaplasmosis) applies in the cattle tick zone of northern Australia, or to cattle being moved into it. The vaccine should go in at least four weeks before the move, and a single dose is said to give lifetime immunity.
Bovine ephemeral fever — three-day sickness — is endemic across the far north and coastal areas, with two doses given between two weeks and six months apart and an annual booster before the wet in non-endemic zones.
If you are in temperate southern Australia running a handful of cattle, none of these three is likely to be your problem. That is exactly the point: buying them anyway is money that would do more good elsewhere.
The vaccines that depend on what you are doing
Vibriosis is a venereal disease of breeding herds, controlled by vaccinating bulls — two doses four to six weeks apart, then annually. Irrelevant to a steer herd or a place using artificial insemination.
Pestivirus (BVDV) is worth understanding before you start rather than after. Two doses four to six weeks apart before joining, then annual boosters. Both MLA and NSW DPI make the same point: it is an ongoing commitment. Stopping mid-stream leaves you with a naive herd and arguably worse exposure than never having begun.
Tetanus comes up often, usually around castration or dehorning. It is already inside 5-in-1 and 7-in-1 — if clostridial cover is current, you do not need a separate tetanus vaccine.
Worms: the three chemical groups
Cattle drenches come from three main chemical families, and knowing which is which is the difference between treating worms and breeding resistant ones.
- Macrocyclic lactones (the "mectins" — ivermectin, abamectin, doramectin, eprinomectin, moxidectin). Broad spectrum, covering roundworms and many external parasites too. Still effective against small brown stomach worm, but resistance in small intestinal worm (Cooperia) is described by WormBoss as fairly widespread.
- Benzimidazoles (the "white" drenches). Resistance in small brown stomach worm is established nationally, but they remain effective against small intestinal worm — which is precisely where the mectins are failing.
- Levamisole (the "clear" drenches). Minimal reported resistance, and the group WormBoss points to where small intestinal worm is the target.
One practical detail that catches people out: oral and injectable mectins do not control biting lice. Pour-ons do, but show greater variability in how much is actually absorbed.
Drenching strategy, and why blanket treatment backfires
The instinct is to drench everything on the place at the same time. WormBoss is direct about where that leads: exposing the entire worm population on a property to treatment at once will ultimately produce widespread drench resistance.
The strategy they recommend instead targets the classes that actually carry the burden — weaners, first and second calvers, and bulls — and leaves the rest. Adult cattle in good condition develop substantial immunity and rarely need treating. The untreated animals matter: they maintain a population of worms that has never met the chemical, which slows resistance across the whole property.
Timing is regional, and genuinely so. ParaBoss publishes annual programs by region, and the right pattern for the New England is not the right pattern for Gippsland or the Darling Downs.
Resistance: what the Australian evidence actually shows
A drench is considered effective if it reduces the worm egg count by at least 95 per cent. Below that, you are looking at resistance.
The clearest Australian cattle data I could find is a NSW DPI trial run on the North Coast in spring 2020 across 240 steers. It found Haemonchus and Cooperia both resistant to a single-active doramectin pour-on. Moxidectin alone controlled Haemonchus but not Cooperia. Levamisole and oxfendazole orals worked on both, as did a moxidectin and levamisole combination. The production cost of the failed treatment was around 10 kg of liveweight over 28 days, and the animals had not made it back ninety days later.
You will also see a striking figure quoted widely: that 70 per cent of farms carry resistance to three or more actives. Follow it back and it is branded content sitting on a sheep dataset. It is not Australian cattle data, and it should not be presented as though it is. Similarly, a figure putting mean efficacy of single-active cattle drenches at 72 per cent comes from a manufacturer page promoting a combination product — the underlying veterinary journal work may well support it, but I could not access the paper to check.
What the evidence does support, without needing marketing behind it: keep some worms unexposed, avoid using the same chemical group again and again, use combinations, dose to the label rather than by eye, and test rather than assume.
Worm egg counts, and their cattle-specific limits
Testing is cheaper than most people expect. From the NSW DPIRD veterinary laboratory's published schedule: an individual faecal egg count is $19.85, up to ten individual samples $72.60, pooled samples $44.85, and a DrenchCheck — a count before and fourteen days after treatment — $24.55 individually or $90 for up to ten. A full drench resistance test runs to $648.85. Private labs and vets will price differently.
The important caveat is cattle-specific. Cattle develop immunity that suppresses egg output even when the worm burden is heavy, so counts systematically under-read; animals over about eighteen months rarely show high counts regardless. WormBoss publishes no numeric action thresholds for cattle, and that is deliberate rather than an omission. A count is one input alongside age, condition, pasture history and season — not a verdict.
Withholding periods and export slaughter intervals
Two different numbers, often confused.
The withholding period is the minimum time between the last treatment and slaughter or milk collection for human consumption. It is mandatory and printed on the label.
The export slaughter interval is the equivalent for cattle destined for export, reconciling Australian residue limits with what our trading partners will accept. It is usually longer, it is not always printed on the label, and it changes as overseas requirements change. The APVMA maintains the current list.
Both are product-specific. Read the pack in front of you, every time, and note that these declarations feed straight into the vendor declaration when stock leave your place.
Ticks, buffalo fly and lice
Cattle tick sits in higher-rainfall northern Australia and is notifiable south of the tick line. Control is mostly about not importing it: treat introduced stock, keep boundary fences secure, and vaccinate against tick fever in endemic country.
Buffalo fly is a northern pest with published treatment thresholds — roughly 200 flies per animal in beef cattle, or 30 per cow in dairy. Waiting until the threshold rather than treating on sight is what slows resistance. Options run from insecticidal ear tags lasting ten to sixteen weeks through to pour-ons giving about three weeks.
Lice occur nationwide and peak over the cooler months, with late autumn the usual treatment window for heavy infestations. The distinction that matters: injectable and oral products control sucking lice only, not biting lice. MLA's view is that light infestations may not warrant chemical treatment at all, and that quarantining and inspecting introduced cattle does more than any product.
The paperwork nobody mentions
Three obligations apply regardless of herd size, and the first two catch new owners constantly.
- A Property Identification Code is mandatory, registered in your name with your state department, before animals move on or off the place.
- NLIS devices must be in any beast leaving the property, the tag stays with the animal for life, and the movement must be recorded on the NLIS database.
- Chemical use records are state-specific. Victoria, for example, requires any prescription product or any product with a withholding period to be recorded within 48 hours — trade name, species, location, animal identification, dates and quantity — and kept for two years. Check your own state's rules rather than assuming.
Some products are prescription-only and require a veterinarian. Off-label use in food-producing animals is restricted and needs written veterinary direction.
What to ask your vet
The value of a district vet is that they know what is actually circulating within twenty kilometres of you, which no article can. Four questions get you most of the way:
- Which clostridial product, and does my situation justify 7-in-1 over 5-in-1?
- Are botulism, tick fever or ephemeral fever real risks in this district, or am I buying insurance against nothing?
- What is the local resistance picture, and which drench group should I be using now?
- Given what I am running, does a worm egg count tell me anything useful, and when should I take it?
A small herd is genuinely easier to keep healthy than a large one. You see every animal every day, which is the single best diagnostic tool there is. The chemicals are a backstop for what observation misses — not a substitute for looking.
This article is general information, not veterinary advice. Dosing schedules quoted here come from one manufacturer's label as an illustration and differ between brands. Always read the current label of the product you are using, and consult a veterinarian about your own herd.
If you are still at the stage of working out the running costs, the companion piece on what cattle actually cost to keep on a small block puts numbers on the animal health line alongside everything else.