Is brucellosis vaccination compulsory in South Africa?

Yes for heifers. Under Table 2 of the Animal Diseases Regulations (Animal Diseases Act 35 of 1984), all heifers between 4 and 8 months of age must be vaccinated once with an effective vaccine. Bulls may not be vaccinated at any age.

Which brucellosis vaccines may I use?

Strain 19 and RB51 are the two approved vaccines. Strain 19 may only be used in heifers between 4 and 8 months of age.

Is the FMD vaccination scheme compulsory?

No. The Routine Vaccination Scheme for Foot and Mouth Disease, gazetted on 4 May 2026, is voluntary — a fast-track option for farmers who do not want to wait for the national rollout to reach their area. Joining it does bring record-keeping and audit obligations.

What has to be recorded for each FMD vaccination?

Participants must use a digital traceability system recording when the animal was vaccinated, the vaccine batch number and the temperature of the fridge the vaccine was stored in. The animal must carry a permanent mark (brand or tattoo) plus a unique ear tag, and the vaccination must be given by a vet or Animal Health Technician authorised by the Director: Animal Health.

Can you give me a full vaccination programme for my herd?

No, and you should be wary of anyone who does without knowing your farm. Outside the brucellosis window and the FMD scheme's requirements there is no national schedule — what you give and when depends on your region's disease pressure and your vet's advice. FarmBind gives you the structure to write your vet's programme against ages so every animal gets its own dates.

Your herd health plan: what the law fixes, and what your vet decides

6 min read · Updated 11 August 2026

The parts that are fixed

Only two things in a South African cattle programme come from a regulation rather than from a vet's judgement. Both are about cattle; both are worth knowing exactly.

What	When	Where it comes from
Brucellosis vaccination of heifers	Once, between 4 and 8 months of age	Table 2 of the Animal Diseases Regulations, Animal Diseases Act 35 of 1984
A formal, recorded vaccination plan you can be audited on	If you join the voluntary FMD scheme (RVS-FMD)	Gazetted 4 May 2026

Brucellosis: a window, not a date

All heifers between 4 and 8 months of age must be vaccinated once with an effective vaccine. Strain 19 and RB51 are the two approved vaccines, and Strain 19 may only be used inside that 4-to-8-month window. No bull may be vaccinated, at any age.

Why the window matters more than the reminder

The age limit is not administrative tidiness. Because the window closes at 8 months, a heifer you miss cannot simply be done later — which is exactly the kind of job that goes missing when the record lives in somebody's head and the calves were born across three months.

FMD: the scheme asks for the record, not just the jab

The Routine Vaccination Scheme for Foot and Mouth Disease was published in the Government Gazette on Monday, 4 May 2026. It is voluntary — a fast-track route for farmers who want to protect their livestock without waiting for the national rollout to reach them — and joining it comes with obligations about paperwork as much as about vaccine.

Participants must use a digital traceability system to record when an animal was vaccinated, the vaccine batch number, and the temperature of the fridge the vaccine was stored in. Every animal must be traceable by a permanent mark — a brand or a tattoo — plus a unique ear tag. The vaccination itself must be done by a private veterinarian or Animal Health Technician authorised by the Director: Animal Health, working under the supervision of the State veterinary authorities. And owners must allow audits and inspections to prove they are following the scheme's rules.

Read that list again

Date, batch number, fridge temperature, the authorised person, and a permanent mark plus an ear tag per animal. That is a record with five fields per vaccination, on every animal, produced on demand. It is not something a notebook survives.

Everything else is your vet's call

Outside those two, there is no national schedule to comply with. What you give, and at what age, depends on your region's disease pressure, your herd's history and what your vet has seen locally. We deliberately do not publish a suggested programme for you to copy: we would be guessing at your conditions, and a guessed age is a needle in an animal on the strength of somebody else's arithmetic.

What is worth copying is the shape. A programme written against AGES rather than dates works itself out for every animal you own: "dose at six weeks" is true for the calf born last night and the one born in March, and each gets its own date. That is the only form of a plan that survives a calving season.

Keeping the record so it is worth something

Write the plan against ages, not dates, so every animal inherits it from its own birth date.
Give each job a window, not a day — a worm dose a fortnight late is a fortnight late, but the brucellosis window genuinely closes.
Record the batch number at the crush, not that evening. It is the field nobody can reconstruct later and the one an auditor asks for first.
Keep the fridge temperature with the vaccination, not in a separate logbook, if you are in the FMD scheme.
Record what you deliberately skipped, and why. "We decided against this one" and "we forgot" look identical in a blank space.

FarmBind writes the dates for you

Build your programme once against ages and every animal gets its own schedule — with the batch number, fridge temperature and vet/AHT captured as you log it, straight into a vaccination register you can print for an auditor.

Try the health plans

Sources

Every date and requirement above comes from one of these. Where something is not in them, this article does not claim it.

Government gazettes voluntary FMD vaccination scheme — SAnews, South African Government News Agency. The 4 May 2026 gazette date, the scheme being voluntary, and the record-keeping, traceability, authorised-vet and audit obligations quoted above.
Legal Aspects of Brucellosis Control — RuVASA, Ruminant Veterinary Association of South Africa. The 4-to-8-month heifer window under Table 2 of the Animal Diseases Regulations (Act 35 of 1984), the two approved vaccines, and that no bull may be vaccinated.

Common questions

Is brucellosis vaccination compulsory in South Africa?: Yes for heifers. Under Table 2 of the Animal Diseases Regulations (Animal Diseases Act 35 of 1984), all heifers between 4 and 8 months of age must be vaccinated once with an effective vaccine. Bulls may not be vaccinated at any age.
Which brucellosis vaccines may I use?: Strain 19 and RB51 are the two approved vaccines. Strain 19 may only be used in heifers between 4 and 8 months of age.
Is the FMD vaccination scheme compulsory?: No. The Routine Vaccination Scheme for Foot and Mouth Disease, gazetted on 4 May 2026, is voluntary — a fast-track option for farmers who do not want to wait for the national rollout to reach their area. Joining it does bring record-keeping and audit obligations.
What has to be recorded for each FMD vaccination?: Participants must use a digital traceability system recording when the animal was vaccinated, the vaccine batch number and the temperature of the fridge the vaccine was stored in. The animal must carry a permanent mark (brand or tattoo) plus a unique ear tag, and the vaccination must be given by a vet or Animal Health Technician authorised by the Director: Animal Health.
Can you give me a full vaccination programme for my herd?: No, and you should be wary of anyone who does without knowing your farm. Outside the brucellosis window and the FMD scheme's requirements there is no national schedule — what you give and when depends on your region's disease pressure and your vet's advice. FarmBind gives you the structure to write your vet's programme against ages so every animal gets its own dates.