Respiratory bovine coronaviruses (RBCV) emerged as an infectious agent most frequently isolated from respiratory tract samples of cattle with acute respiratory tract diseases. Infectivity-neutralizing (IN) and hemagglutinin-inhibiting (HAI) antibodies induced by RBCV infections were monitored in sequential serum samples collected from cattle during a naturally evolving and experimentally monitored epizootic of shipping fever pneumonia (SFP). Cattle nasally shedding RBCV at the beginning of the epizootic started with low levels of serum IN and HAI antibodies. An increase in serum IN antibody after day 7 led to reduction of virus shedding in nasal secretions by the majority of the cattle between days 7 and 14. A substantial rise in the serum HAI antibody was observed during the initial phase among the sick but not the clinically normal cattle which were infected with RBCV. The RBCV isolation-positive cattle that developed fatal SFP had minimal serum IN and HAI antibodies during the course of disease development. Cattle that remained negative in RBCV isolation tests entered this epizootic with high levels of serum IN and HAI antibodies, which dramatically increased during the next two weeks. Protection against SFP was apparently associated with significantly higher levels of serum IN antibodies at the beginning of the epizootic. The RBCV-neutralizing activity is associated with serum immunoglobulin G (IgG), particularly the IgG2 subclass, while RBCV-specific HAI antibody is related to both serum IgG and IgM fractions.