You may find it an inconvenience to change your needle often when processing your herd. You may even view it as an unnecessary expense.

Let’s look at some of the reasons that will help us all understand why it’s worth the time and expense to change that needle.

Cross-contamination – every time you vaccinate an additional animal with a repeating syringe gun or return to the bottle for a refill you risk cross-contamination.

You can reduce this by only using a clean needle to draw from the bottle to fill your syringe.

You can also reduce the percentage of risk from animal to animal by changing the syringe needle every 10 -15 animals.

Damage to muscle tissue – dull or burred (tip bent or damaged) needles cause an animal additional pain and can also increase the risk of infection at the injection site because the needle has not made a clean entry and exit.

Needle strength – the longer a needle is used the higher the risk of the needle breaking off in the animal on injection. Needles flex and bend when you inject animals that are not properly restrained. This weakens the needle and increases the risk of it breaking off in the animal.

Change your needle! It is not only a good operational practice, but also an economic benefit. 

Check out our needle exchange systems as well – they’re a great tool to make changing needles safe!