Effects of vaccination timing and target pathogens on performances and antimicrobial use in long-transported Charolais beef cattle from France to Italy - A retrospective study

Antimicrobial use (AMU) in the livestock sector is a major driver of antimicrobial resistance. Italian beef industry strongly relies on the import of young cattle from France, which are commingled in sorting facilities before transportation to Italy. Both commingling and transportation are stressors for animals and lead to higher risk of bovine respiratory disease (BRD), which in turn increases the risk of AMU. This study aimed to investigate how the timing of first BRD vaccination and the different vaccination target pathogens affect AMU and performance of young Charolais beef cattle imported from France to Italy. Information on animal performance, antimicrobial treatments, and vaccinations was available for 60,726 Charolais cattle belonging to 1449 batches in 33 Italian specialised fattening farms between January 2016 and December 2021. Antimicrobial use was estimated using the treatment incidence 100 adapted for Italy (TI100it). A mixed linear model was used to quantify the effects of the vaccination and the time of first administration on slaughter age, carcase weight, and average daily carcase gain. Similarly, a generalised linear mixed model was used to analyse the TI100it. The vaccination programme was usually applied the first day after the animals' arrival to the Italian fattening farms. Most animals were vaccinated with a polyvalent vaccine against infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR), bovine parainfluenza type 3 virus (PI-3), bovine viral diarrhoea virus type 1 and 2 (BVDV), and bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV). The most used class of antimicrobials to treat BRD were the macrolides, followed by aminoglycosides, amphenicols, tetracyclines, aminopenicillins, and fluoroquinolones. Animals that got vaccinated against any of the considered BRD pathogens upon arrival had significantly lower TI100it, greater average daily carcase gain, and reached slaughter age earlier than animals that got vaccinated later. Animals that received the vaccination against BVDV had lower TI100it and greater average daily carcase gain, and animals that received the vaccination against BRSV were younger at slaughter than unvaccinated animals. The vaccination against Mannheimia haemolytica significantly decreased the slaughter age and increased the carcase weight and average daily carcase gain, and the vaccination against PI-3 and Histophilus somni significantly increased the slaughter age. Thus, even if the vaccination programme is essential to tackle BRD, this practice is questionable if applied at arrival to the Italian fattening farms and it is advisable that the vaccination programme is planned before the commingling procedure in France.