Be Mindful of Vaccine Management

Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Mishandling vaccines risks leaving money on the table

By Emily McKinlay

A vaccination program is one of the strongest tools that livestock producers can use to prevent disease in their herds. Administering the vaccine can feel like the most critical aspect of a program, but good handling practices should not be overlooked.

“Vaccines are the best way to be preventative about diseases and give your animals the best immunity possible,” says Dr. Melanie Boucher, a swine veterinarian at South West Ontario Veterinary Services.

“By handling a vaccine inappropriately, not only are you potentially ruining how well a vaccine program works, but you are also throwing money away.”

Dr. Rod Wieringa, a veterinarian at Heartland Animal Hospital, adds that in severe cases, vaccine mishandling can even cause negative effects beyond decreased vaccine efficacy.

“At a minimum, if you are handling a vaccine improperly, you may interfere with the effectiveness, resulting in animals not being protected,” says Wieringa.

“At worst, you may increase the risk of injection site reactions, potentially causing infections or sick animals.”

Being diligent to correctly handle vaccines during transport, storage, and use primes livestock for better health at all stages of production.

“Whatever you do during early life is what those animals carry with them throughout the production cycle,” says Dr. Nilusha Malmuthuge, assistant professor at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.

“The vaccine is one of the most powerful tools we have to enhance and enrich early life health.”

Proper storage and transport

The administration of vaccines is just a fraction of the overall vaccine handling process. Ideal conditions need to be maintained from the time it is picked up from the veterinarian.

“Protect the vaccine by storing it at the correct temperature,” says Wieringa.

“As you transport it from the clinic to the farm, make sure it comes with ice packs or bring a cooler with ice packs. Get it from the vet’s fridge to your fridge as quickly as you can.”

Wieringa says that most vaccines recommend maintaining a temperature between 2 C to 8 C. He suggests placing a paper or fabric towel between the ice packs and the vaccine to help maintain the integrity of the box.

The refrigerator’s temperature should also be monitored.

“I recommend that the fridge storing vaccines doesn’t house any food or household products, to minimize the risk of contamination back and forth,” says Boucher.

“Farmers should be monitoring their fridge. We don’t always think about the vaccine fridge. There have been several instances where, when I’ve looked in a fridge, it feels too warm, and then I find out that it hasn’t been working for a week or longer.”

Boucher says there should be a thermometer in the vaccine refrigerator. She suggests keeping a weekly log of fridge temperature checks to ensure it consistently maintains the correct temperature.

It is also important to make sure that any stocked vaccine is managed appropriately.

“Avoid overstocking and ensure that air can flow throughout the fridge. By filling the fridge to the max, it can create pockets of low airflow where the product on the shelf isn’t getting enough cold air.

“It’s also important to check expiry dates. There will be a date on every vaccine, whether it’s on the bottle or the cardboard box. Every time you go to vaccinate, make it a habit to check the expiry date.”

Boucher recommends organizing the vaccine fridge with the oldest vaccines toward the front, so they are used before they reach their expiry dates.

Management during use

While using the vaccine, it is still important to avoid contamination or mishandling.

The first step is understanding the vaccine itself, says Boucher.

“There are modified live virus vaccines and killed virus vaccines, and how we handle them is different,” explains Boucher.

“Modified live vaccines have live pathogens in the bottle – usually a virus – and that dies over time when taken out of ideal conditions. They are typically mixed with a sterile solution to activate them. The killed vaccines are usually ready to go and tend to be a bit more stable.”

Modified live vaccines require special care during the mixing process. Wieringa recommends gently rolling the bottle to mix. The vaccine should be used as quickly as possible after mixing, ideally within one to two hours. Vaccine bottles should be purchased with the correct number of doses to be used as quickly as possible after mixing. Multiple 10-dose bottles may be more suitable than a 50-dose bottle for smaller management groups. Vaccines should be kept at the recommended temperature throughout use, using a cooler or fridge to avoid becoming too warm or too cold.

Outside contamination of the vaccine bottle should also be minimized.

“The goal is to keep the live organisms alive. Don’t get anything that can kill those live organisms in the vaccine,” says Malmuthuge.

“Always use sterile needles and don’t mix with needles or syringes used to administer antibiotics, as that can kill the live organisms. When getting mixed vaccine out of the bottle, try to use a new needle instead of continuously using the same needle.”

Wieringa agrees that producers should avoid introducing used needles into vaccine bottles.

“I’m not a big fan of going into large bottles of vaccine to draw out one dose at a time. Every time a needle enters the bottle, you have a risk of introducing dirt.

“If you are not switching needles, and you drag blood or manure from the previous animal into the bottle, you affect the quality of the vaccine and put the next animal at risk of developing a mild or potentially severe infection from that needle.”

He recommends changing needles at least every five to 10 animals. When injecting multiple vaccines, Wieringa says that ideally they are given on opposing sides of the animal, but when that’s not possible, he aims to spread out injection sites by six inches.

For pork producers, when multiple vaccines are mixed, Boucher reinforces that producers need to confirm that the products are suitable for mixing with their veterinarian, and they must be used as quickly as possible to avoid deactivating the vaccines.

Wieringa also cautions producers to consider how many vaccines they administer at one time.

“Sometimes you can give too much vaccine on a single day. If you vaccinate with a five-way viral and an eight-way clostridial and a four-way scour, and are doing those all on the same day, you are asking the cow’s immune system to do too much,” says Wieringa.

“Either they won’t respond well to any of the vaccines, or they may have a suboptimal response to at least one component. I probably wouldn’t give any more than two vaccines on one trip through the chute.”

He adds, “Don’t vaccinate a sick animal. If an animal is already sick, there is a chance that you can make it worse, and they can get sicker.”

Does handling matter?

When going through the busy process of vaccinating, it might seem like an extra consideration to keep track of good handling practices. Doing one or two things wrong might not seem like too big a deal in the name of efficiency. Why does it matter?

“One of my favourite statements is something a vet told me really early in my career,” recalls Wieringa.

“If we don’t handle vaccine well, the sole purpose of using that mishandled product is now just to tick the cows off.

“They won’t respond as well to the vaccine, so you are going to fool yourself into thinking that you’re protected when you’re actually not.”

Malmuthuge has been conducting research on why good handling practices are important. She has been specifically focusing on a five-way modified live vaccine for respiratory infections in calves.

“Even though you have five viruses covered in most respiratory vaccines, not all of them behave the same way,” says Malmuthuge.

“It’s important to understand how to create a program protocol to get the best protection for all types of viruses.”

She adds, “In our study, we were asking some basic questions that should be common sense.”

The study had four treatments. For Group 1, the team followed label recommendations of using the vaccine within one hour of mixing and it was kept in a cooler at 4 C.

For Group 2, the vaccine was used within one hour of mixing and was kept at room temperature. For Group 3, the vaccine was used six hours after mixing and was kept at 4 C. The vaccine for Group 4 was used six hours after mixing and was kept at room temperature.

“Leaving a mixed vaccine outside for a time can easily happen on farms,” says Malmuthuge.

“Vaccination is only one of many things producers need to do.”

The study found that the pathogens in the five-way modified live vaccine responded differently to being mishandled.

“Out of the five pathogens, Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus (BVDV) Type 1 and BVDV Type 2 responded to how the vaccine was handled,” says Malmuthuge.

“If you follow the recommendations on the label, you are able to stimulate an active immune response in calves. If it wasn’t followed, and the vaccine was prepared six hours before it was administered, it reduced the number of animals that had an active immune response by nearly 90 per cent. Only 10 per cent of the vaccinated calves developed immunity to BVDV Type 1 and Type 2.”

This means that nine out of 10 calves are not primed against BVD, although a producer might expect them to be protected because of the vaccination process.

Proper vaccine handling ensures livestock are properly protected against preventable diseases. Neglecting good handling practices can waste money by reducing the efficacy of the vaccine program. BF