The presence of maternal antibodies is a major obstacle for eliciting protective immune responses to foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccines in young, growing animals. In this report, we analyzed the ability of inactivated quadrivalent oil emulsified and aluminium hydroxide adjuvanted FMD vaccines to elicit neutralizing antibody responses in growing calves that had maternal antibodies. Our results demonstrate that oil emulsified vaccines but not aluminium hydroxide adjuvanted FMD vaccines could surmount maternal antibodies to elicit strong and significant levels of neutralizing antibody responses in growing claves. © 2014 Elsevier B.V.