Cows - 2 miscarriages within 2 weeks!

[Campground Cattle]

We live in SW Missouri and had never heard of such a disease, hell, our vet had never heard of it. We figured it was Lepto, we had bought the cow at a herd dispersal at the sale barn last fall. They were reputable breeders at one time and had kinda let the herd go down hill.

Anyway, they do have a vaccine (very expensive!) that you give during the first stage of pregnancy and then they get a booster 2 weeks later. And you repeat both doses yearly. We are just getting started so we don't have a 'herd'. We have about a dozen cows and have been trying to do everything perfect and by-the-book. Too bad the book didn't mention Neospora...

We have a couple more calves due, one in the next month or so and then two more in June. So we're holding our breath and waiting to see if they are all infected. I asked the vet if we could do bloodwork on all of them, but he wants to wait until the final results come back from the lab.

We are trying to decide what to do the the infected cow, as we have some really excellent young heifers coming in a month, and don't want to risk having them exposed.

Some people are born into the cattle business, and some struggle everyday to acquire everything they've got. It's all on the line for us right now.

Thanks for all your info, it has been a tremendous help, you'd think the vet would be able to do more for us, but the people who contribute to this website have done more than I ever imagined.

Many, many thanks!
Eric & Jennifer

She will probably not abort again it is usually the first calf after infection she will pass it on to her offspring, which will more than likely abort the first time. Neospora has been around a long time. I think a lot of us assumed lepto for years until we became familar with Neospora. Your heifer will not infect the rest of your herd. Your trasmission source is cannie or rodent. Coyotes/dogs eat the after birth then deposit fecal mater in a feed source or water and the cycle starts all over to the next host animal.

 

[jecyount]

We have a few dogs and there are some coyotes around that you hear at night but never see, so I know we have some, but I'm really kinda worried about our barn cats. We have about 4, 3 males and 1 female. They usually stay in our feed shed as we have had a terrible problem with mice, but I went out to feed one day and there was cat **** in the feed barrel. I'm sure it wasn't the first time, I tried to lock them out because we really need them around, but then m wife fed one day and the cat jumped up in the barrel right in front of her and peed in it. I never thought so much about it, but things are starting to fall in place, assumming they are just as much a carrier as a dog. Our female cat cannot have kittens and I read that Neospora was 'believed' to cause sterilility. We have just recently figured this out and have done away with all cats. The cats may have nothing to do with it but it would sure make a lot of sense. What do you think?

 

[Campground Cattle]

Neospora Abortion in Dairy Cattle

Steven L. Berry, DVM, MPVM;
John H. Kirk, DVM, MPVM;
Mark C. Thurmond, DVM, PhD

Department of Animal Science and
School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis



Neospora caninum is a parasite that very closely resembles Toxoplasma gondii which is known to cause abortion in sheep and goats but has not been diagnosed as a cause of abortion in cattle. The definitive host for a parasite is on e which the parasite requires to complete its life cycle. No definitive host has not been found for Neospora. The cat is the definitive host for Toxoplasma gondii but Neospora caninum has never been found to occur naturally in cats. Cats are an important part of rodent control on many dairies and if the cats are removed from the dairy, rodents will be more of a problem. It is also possible that the rodents could be the definitive host for the parasite. Neospora caninum can in fect a wide variety of animals (dogs, cats, cattle, sheep, goats, horses, mice) and is found world wide. We might, therefore, expect that the definitive host would be a species or group of related species that have a worldwide distribution. We would also expect the definitive host to be one in which the parasite would have a low pathogenicity.