The Bovine Bugle

Johne's Disease in cows explained

I wanted to answer a question a reader sent in after a recent blog. Liz had to cull her home dairy cows due to Johne's Disease, and she wanted to know if we test our cows for the disease and if we had a "clean" herd. I was very sorry to hear of her plight, and I wanted to address the subject.

Johne's Disease is an incurable bacterial infection that occurs mostly in ruminants, such as dairy cows, and it affects the lower small intestine. Over time the intestinal wall, in reaction to the infection, becomes thickened, impairing its ability to absorb nutrients. The animal, while maintaining a healthy appetite, appears to start wasting away.

Our state was offering funding to test dairy herds, and we decided to enroll our herd and have been working with our vet, Dr. Steve, to do the required testing. The first test was to blood test all the milking animals. This was a simple test, the results came back fairly quickly, and Dr. Steve told us the results were the best he had ever seen. Since Johne's is most often introduced into a herd through purchased animals, we felt confident our herd would test well because we haven't purchased any animals in the last 30 years.

To confirm the blood test results, we were then required to do fecal samples on 30 animals at least 36 months old. The samples were taken the end of September and sent off to be cultured. The results won't be back until next month. We are very confident that our herd will be declared Johne's-free.

This is important for several reasons. In the future, when we sell animals to other farmers, and Johne's-free status may make our animals worth more. Knowing our herd is free of this disease lets us know our animals are healthy and will not suffer health or production problems due Johne's. If any readers want more information, they can visit the website, http://johnes.org.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Posted by Blogger Chris at November 17, 2005 07:06 PM