Give Cattle Injections

Knowledge of how to give cattle injections or shots, be it sub-subcutaneously (SQ; under the skin), intramuscularly (IM; directly into the blood supply of the muscle), or intravenously (IV; directly into the vein, usually the jugular vein), is very important in order to be able to vaccinate or treat cattle with vaccines or medicines, respectively. A cow, bull, heifer, steer or calf does not have to be sick in order to be given an injection, many cattle that are perfect healthy are required to get injections or shots for annual vaccinations or booster shots.

It's highly recommended to see your veterinarian for further information on medicines and vaccinations for your cattle, as well as verification of properly giving your animals a proper injection. It is highly recommended that you seek veterinarian advice or help if an intravenous injection needs to be delivered, as this is a much more difficult procedure to give than SQ or IM injections. Overall, for tips and steps on how to properly inject cattle, please continue reading the steps below.

Steps

Preparing to For the Injection

1. Find the cattle that are in need of being treated or vaccinated
2. Restrain the animal in a squeeze chute. Make sure their heads are restrained in a head-gate. It is much easier to give injections to cattle that are restrained by a head gate or squeeze chute (also called a crush), or by a medina-gate that pins the animal to the fence or side of the barn, than if you were trying to inject them without any of this equipment available.
   • A squeeze chute or cattle crush is a narrow stall with adjustable sides that is just wide enough for one adult cow to be held. Here the side panels compress or squeeze the sides of the the animal so that she cannot move from side to side and is supposed to induce a calming effect on the animal. A gate at the rear keeps the animal from backing up and out of the chute, and a head-gate on the front has an opening wide enough for its neck, but not its head or shoulders. This makes its head accessible for oral medications, dehorning, and the neck easily accessible for injections. An alleyway or working chute leads up to the squeeze and can hold multiple cows at a time.
   • Restraint of the animal keeps both you and the bovine safe, and significantly reduces injury to yourself, your co-workers and the animal being handled. However, some farms or ranches are not equipped with squeeze chutes, and you may have to rely on some people with lariats and good cow horses to keep an animal down so you can give it the needed injection.
3. Read the label. Always read and follow the directions on the label of the medication or vaccination for required dosage and require routes of administration. The drug manufacturer is obliged by law to print instructions on the injection bottle and provide such information, as well as warnings, targeted micro-organisms, and other information.
   • If there is an option to choose between an intramuscular (IM) and subcutaneous (SQ) injection route, always go for the SQ as it is less invasive, which means it is less likely to damage valuable carcass meat.
   • However, some drugs do need to be given by IM injection in order to be properly absorbed (see Method 4 for information on which drugs should be given through IM).
4. Find the injection site. The required site for injection, particularly in beef cattle, is a site called the "injection triangle". However, for dairy cows, often injections are given in the skin between the tail-head and the hip bones (the pins of the pelvis on the bovine). This triangular area is located on either side of the the neck and contains few vital structures (like blood vessels and nerves). The injection triangle is broadest at the shoulder and tapers towards the ear.
   • The retail value of meat from this site is lower than the rump, so you are less likely to lose money if you are planning on selling the meat.
   • The landmarks for finding the triangle are:
     • The upper boundary, located below the spinal column (below the nuchal ligament) following the line of the neck crest or top-line;
     • The lower or angular boundary, drawn along and above the line of the jugular furrow, located in the middle of the neck.
     • The posterior boundary (the one closest to the rear of the animal) follows the line above the point of the shoulder, which angles up towards the top-line or top of the shoulder.
5. Select the syringe or dosing gun. Injections are be given by either syringe or with a dosing gun. The difference between the two is that with a syringe, you manually control how much of the drug gets injected into the cow, while the dosing gun dispenses pre-set volumes of medicine for administering more than one animal.
   • A syringe is made up of three parts: the body (that contains the drug), the plunger (that fits snugly inside the barrel), and the needle. Syringes are plastic and often used no more than once or twice before they are thrown away. Plastic syringes come in 1, 2, 3, 5, 12, 20, 35, and 60 cc (1 cc = 1 mL) sizes. Use the size of syringe needed according to the dose requirements for a single animal, and one dose in a syringe should only be used for one animal.
   • A dosing gun or pistol syringe similarly has a glass barrel (typically loaded with multiple doses) with a plunger that has a thick rubber washer at the end to form a vacuum, a needle and a handle-trigger that is the same as that on a caulking gun. Some guns have the option of attaching a bottle to it. Majority of dosing guns come in 5, 12.5, 20, 25, and 50 mL sizes.
6. Give different injections in different places. This is if you have more than one medication or vaccination to give. The next shot should be administered in a place that is at least four inches (about a palm’s width) away from the first shot site. If you keep putting medication into the same spot, the cow’s body will have a harder time absorbing it, because the medications could react to each other causing ineffectiveness, or an adverse reaction that may kill the animal.

Selecting the Needle

1. Choose a needle based on the animal's weight. Needle size is measured in ‘gauges’. The gauge of a needle is inversely proportional to its diameter, such that the lower the gauge, the bigger the needle. For instance, a calf's skin is thinner than that of an adult cow, so a finer and higher gauge needle can be used instead. You should also try to use the finest gauge possible to make sure that the cow feels as little pain as possible, but not so fine that risk of breaking the needle is significant.
   • To give an injection to a calf weighing less than 500 pounds, an 18-20 gauge (g) needle with a {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} length is ideal.
   • For larger animals weighing over 500 pounds, you will need a 16-18 g needle with of 1 ½ inch length.
   • Breed can also play a part on determining needle gauge. Black Angus cattle tend to have thinner hides than Herefords, for instance, so you won't need a 16 g needle to pierce the thinner hide of an Angus cow, versus the more thicker one of a Hereford.
2. Choose needle length based on the type of injections that need to be administered. Usually shorter needles are needed for subcutaneous injections, and longer needles are needed for intramuscular and intravenous injections.
   • You won't need a needle longer than {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} to {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}, for SQ injections because you only need to penetrate the skin.
   • For IM and IV injections, needles that are around {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} or more are best.
3. Use a new, sterile needle. A new, sterile needle is recommended to be used per animal. However, it is acceptable to use the same needle for up to ten injections, provided it remains sharp and straight. Always change to a new needle when a fresh draw is made from a different bottle of medication because using the old needle may introduce contamination.
   • Never attempt to straighten a bent or burred needle because it is much more likely to break on you or break off in the process of injection. Burred needles are also to never be straightened, but simply tossed into a bio-hazard bin.

Drawing Medication into the Syringe

1. Take a syringe and cap it with a needle. The needle will have a cap on it when you push it onto the end of the syringe, or should if it's a fresh, clean needle. Push the needle down on the syringe so the needle stays on and won't come off.
2. Remove the needle cap. Take the cap off the needle and have it ready to draw fluid into the syringe. You won't be able to get medication into the syringe if you have the cap still placed over the needle.
3. Take a new bottle and remove the aluminum cap. The aluminum cap protects the rubber cap that is placed over the opening of the bottle and keeps the liquid from leaking out if the bottle is tipped on its side or upside down. Use your finger nails to remove the cap, never a knife or sharp object, because you will compromise the rubber cap and invite contamination.
4. Poke the needle through the rubber cap. Before you do so, however, you should draw the same amount of air into the syringe as you want to draw from the bottle. This is so that it makes it easier for you to draw in the contents, because trying to draw in liquid when you have a vacuum formed by both the syringe and the bottle can make things very difficult. Then you can poke the needle into the rubber cap.
   • The rubber cap will act as a vacuum or not invite air into the bottle, and when the needle is pushed through, this vacuum will not be disrupted.
5. Draw the medication into the syringe. After you have pushed the amount of air you have in your syringe into the bottle with the plunger, raise the bottle up so that it is almost vertically above the syringe, and slowly pull back on the plunger, drawing the fluid into the syringe up to the desired amount. It's important to raise the bottle above the syringe so that you allow gravity to help draw the fluid in, and so that you're not drawing in air instead.
6. Lower the bottle and slowly remove the needle. Lowering the bottle moves the liquid to the bottom (via gravity) and introduces the "air" component of the bottle. Removing the needle then ensures that liquid won't drip out.
7. Place the bottle upright in a safe place for future use. Store the bottle in a place where it's cool and dry and won't get damaged, like in a cooler or toolbox meant for storing your cattle medicating equipment.
8. Point the needle upwards to allow any air bubbles present to float to the top. Flick your finger against the barrel for any bubbles that won't automatically float up. Slowly and carefully push the plunger to eject the air bubbles present. This especially important if you are going to administer IM or IV injections.

Giving a Subcutaneous (SQ) Injection

1. Use the "tenting" technique. To give an SQ injection, a technique known as ‘tenting’ is used. If you are right handed, hold the syringe in your right hand (and vice versa if you are left-handed). Identify the injection triangle (as described in Method 1) and choose a spot in the center of this imaginary triangle. Using your left hand, pinch some of the animal's skin between your two forefingers and thumb and lift this piece of skin straight out and away from the neck to form a "tent". The tent should be made perpendicular to the neck.
2. Angle the needle so that it is at a 30 to 45 degree angle from the surface of the neck. The tip of the needle can be placed under your thumb, though location of where to place the tip of the needle depends on what you are most comfortable with and where you are least likely to poke yourself. Take care not to touch the plunger (if using a syringe) or trigger (if using a dosing device).
3. Guide the needle in the injection site. Using your forefinger of the hand holding the syringe, guide the needle into the center of one side the tent you formed with your other hand in the first preceding step. This ensures you only insert the needle halfway, instead of all the way, into the skin fold, and reduces the chance of hitting muscle or a blood vessel.
4. Administer the shot. Once the needle is in at the required length, release the skin and depress the plunger or squeeze the handle of the syringe with your syringe hand. Apply slow, steady pressure to the plunger. Once the injection is complete, withdraw the needle, cap it, and place the syringe on a dry, clean surface for future use (if you are planning on giving injections to more than one animal).
5. Reduce any bleeding that may occur. Press and rub the injection site with your hand for a few seconds so that the spot does not bleed too much and to insure the injected fluid does not leak out too much. An SQ injection should not bleed nearly as much as an IM or IV injection, if at all, but there is greater risk of injected fluid leaking out, sometimes profusely if the skin is really tight or too much fluid is injected into one site.

Giving an Intramuscular (IM) Injection

1. Help the bovine to reduce the painful feeling of the needle plunging in. Because intramuscular injections are more painful than a SQ injection, efforts must be made to reduce the pain that a cow will feel when the needle is put in. To lessen the pain then, most veterinarians firmly thump the heel of their hand against the cow’s neck two or three times prior to introducing the needle. It's highly recommended you follow this procedure.
   • Thumping the cow’s neck with your hand desensitizes the nerves so when the needle is put in, she is less likely to feel the needle going in and become startled.
2. Select a location to administer the IM injection. Hold the syringe in your dominant hand (right, if right-handed). Identify the injection triangle and selecting an area near the center, be ready to put needle in at a perpendicular angle to the surface of the skin.
3. Put the needle into the cow’s neck. Keeping the needle perpendicular to the skin surface and a using firm, thrusting movement, push the needle through the skin into the muscle. This must be done immediately after the neck has been thumped a few times. At this point the cow may flinch so be ready for her to move around a little in the chute (a bit more if she's not used to human contact).
   • Check to see if you have hit a vein or artery. To do this, withdraw the plunger of the syringe a small amount and look for blood back-flow. If you find blood going into the syringe, you’ve hit a blood vessel. You will have to withdraw and try a different site.
4. Administer the medicine. Once you have checked that you have not hit a blood vessel, you can administer the medication. Slowly depress the plunger until the cow has received the correct dose. If you are giving more than 10 mL IM, be sure to give no more than 10 mL per injection site.
   • After you have removed the syringe, press the spot with your fingers for a few moments to keep the spot from bleeding.

Giving an Intravenous (IV) Injection

1. Locate the jugular vein. You can do this by running your fingers down the side of the cow's neck (it will be below where the invisible injection triangle would be) above the dewlap. You will feel the jugular vein throbbing. Once you have located it, press down on the lower part of the vein to make it bulge out. This will help you better locate the vein when giving the shot.
2. Check to make sure that there are no bubbles in your syringe. Air bubbles, if injected into the jugular vein, can cause a serious health risk, if not death. If air is present in the syringe where the medication has been injected into it, hold the syringe upright and tap it using your fingers, until the air bubbles go up. Disperse the bubbles further by slightly depressing the plunger until all the air bubbles have noticeably gone out. A little medication will come out out the needle as you do so.
3. Insert the syringe at a 30 to 45 degree angle to the surface of the neck. Slowly, but firmly, insert the syringe into the bulging jugular vein. You will know if you have correctly hit the jugular vein because just a slight pulling of the plunger will draw blood into the syringe and mix with its contents. This is a good sign, unlike for SQ and IM injections.
4. Administer the medicine. Very slowly press down on the plunger so that the fluid gradually gets expelled into the cow’s vein. Once you have given the required amount of medicine, gently removed the needle. Hold your hand over the spot and press against it for a few moments to reduce the bleeding that will occur when you give this type of shot.

Tips

• You will need veterinarian or animal health technician expertise to perform an IV injection. Giving an IV injection takes a lot of skill and practice and is a specialized technique not often administered to cattle by the owner. If you cannot perform the IV injection properly or know exactly how it's done, contact your veterinarian and have him or her perform the procedure for you.
• Avoid giving shots in the top loin, back leg, or rump of the cow to avoid down-grading the meat of the animal.
• Only use needles with an aluminum hub since they are less likely than a plastic hub, to break off if the animal moves.
• Always consult a veterinarian before giving a shot to a cow. They can give you more specific tips for your cow.
• Use a halter and lead rope to secure the animal's head when doing nasal injections.
  • DO NOT let your friend get in with the cow to hold its head, as this could lead to serious injury to your friend. If possible, when the animal is in a medina-gate, have the friend hold the lead rope attached to the halter of the animal from outside of the gate, hoisting the animal's head up to better access the animal's nose.
  • If you have the bovine in a head-gate, also use a halter to better restrain the animal's head. A lead rope should be attached to the halter or tied there, then tied up so that the animal's head cannot move away when you administer the IN injection.
• Use a crush or squeeze chute with a head gate attached when vaccinating cattle. This will minimize movement and make it easier for you to do injections without fearing injury to yourself or the animal.
• Talk to your veterinarian as to what kind of vaccine or medicine is needed for your animals. Some types are better or more effective than others; and some are more expensive than others.
• Throw away any dirty, burred, broken or bent needles.
• Work cattle as calmly and quietly as possible. This will cause less stress on you and the cattle when they go through the handling facility to be processed. Do not yell, chase or beat the cattle, as this will more often cause cattle to become very agitated in the race and even in the crush or head-gate.
• Store vaccines accordingly. Vaccines that need to be kept cool should be kept in a cooler with ice packs (especially during hot summer days); vaccines that need to be kept at room temperature should be kept in a cooler with warm water bottles (especially during wintertime) during time of use.
  • Otherwise, store medicines in the fridge (if required) or in a cool dark place (for those that do not need refrigeration) until next use.
• Throw away any out-dated medicines, and also toss any empty bottles you have.
• Use clean, disinfected and sharp needles for every animal you administer.
  • Disinfect needles after every use, because, just like in humans, diseases can be transferred from bovine to bovine if dirty needles are used, causing a real head-ache for you. If necessary, throw out dirty needles and instead use new needles for every animal being needled.
• Use the correct size syringes for the type of injection liquid you are using. The lower the dosage, the smaller the syringe you need.
• Use a different syringe for each different type of injection liquid you are using at the time
• Treat your animals according to their weight. Often the dosage is one the bottle, written as # of cc/100 lb body weight.
• Use the correct gauge and size needles according to the size of animal you are treating. The thicker an animal's hide is, the lower gauge number you will need.
  • For calves, use 18 to 20 gauge needles.
  • Cows and bulls require 18 to 14 gauge needles.
    • Needles should be no more than {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} in length; shorter is better for SubQ injections.

Warnings

• Avoid putting your head inside the crush as much as possible in case an animal bucks or rears, as this may result in serious to fatal injuries to you.
• Don't get in the race or working alley with cattle unless you want to be squashed. Always work the cattle from the outside of the race, never inside.
• NEVER mix vaccine liquids or use the same syringe for different vaccines or medicines. Always designate one syringe for one type of vaccine liquid only and another for a different one. If necessary, mark each syringe with the vaccine being used in each, if more than 2 syringes are being put into use.
• Do not use broken or bent needles. If any needles are broken, bent, have burrs on the end or are dull, throw them away in a proper disposable container.
• Watch out for cattle trying to jump over the gate into the crush after the other cattle, as this can cause problems.
• Do not use vaccines/medicines that are past their best-before date, opened or not. Vaccines that are past their best-before dates are far less effective (and can even be harmful) than those that are used before their best-before date.
• IV injections should only be used in an emergency like in the advanced stages of milk fever, grass tetany, or if a calf is in need of fluids and electrolytes which cannot be attained as quickly from oral administration. Do not use IV for any other medicine or vaccine.
  • Always warm up IV liquids in hot water before use to minimize the risk of shock to the animal when cold liquid is being injected into the animal's bloodstream.
    • The closer to normal body temperature the IV liquid is, the better.
  • Make sure no air is in the syringe or IV tubes or bags when drawing out vaccines or medicines. (This accounts for all methods of injection, be it oral, IN, IM, or SQ.) This ensures you have the correct dosage, and in the case of IV, it minimizes risk of death loss when an air bubble enters the blood stream.

Things You'll Need

• Needles (clean and disinfected)
• Syringes (of the proper size)
• Vaccine or medicine
• Head-gate and crush (or squeeze chute) with handling facility attached
• Cattle that need to be treated or vaccinated

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