Dealing With Johne's

There are two basic strategies for control of Johne's disease: #1 stop new infections from occurring in calves, and #2 eliminate the source of infection infected adult cattle in the herd. Doing both strategies will effective control, or possibly eliminate, Johne's disease from a dairy cattle herd.

Johne's disease can be controlled and even eliminated from infected herds, however, it takes athorough understanding of the disease by animal owners, consultation with a veterinarian, and requires use of one or more of the available diagnostic tests. Half-hearted attempts to control Johne's disease will generally fail. Control of Johne's disease also takes time. A typical herd clean up program may take 5 years or longer.Faster clean up programs are possible, but they are usually more expensive. The basics of control are simple: new infections must be prevented, and animals with the infection must be identified and removed from the herd.

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". Disease prevention is always more cost-effective than control and treatment. This is even more true for Johne's disease since it is not treatable.

Prevention is the most cost-effective way to manage Johne's disease. It is far less expensive to block introducing Johne's disease into a herd/flock than it is to control or eradicate the infection once it creeps in and invisibly starts to spread. Risk management is the foundation of any good animal care program and the risk of becoming infected by bringing in infected animals is manageable. Smart buyers of animals will apply the concepts of risk management and require diagnostic test results for the source herds or flocks to limit their risk as much as possible. If sellers refuse to allow their herds or flocks to be tested before you purchase their animals, there is a good likelihood their herd or flock may be infected. Find another source of animals from whom to buy if possible or at least test the individual animals you are contemplating for purchase.

Diagnosis of Johne’s disease in cattle showing clinical signs (diarrhea and weight loss) is not difficult. However, diagnosis of the infection cattle that are clinically normal is challenging. Proper test selection, application, and interpretation is vital. It is also essential to use laboratories that have passed some form of standardized proficiency test to be sure they can produce reliable results. Most of this is complex enough that it is best left to veterinarians.

Posted Nov 12th

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