Johne's Disease

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mamapooh

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Do you know if a cow was diagnosed with Johne's Disease, will her offspring be born with the disease?
 
Calves born to Johne's-infected cows, are 10 times more likely to be infected than are calves born to non-Johne's cows in the same herd.
Studies done back in the '80s, following high fecal-shedding cows to slaughter, showed that M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis, the bacterium that causes the infection, could be isolated from fetal tissues in at least 25% of the animals.
So...potentially at least 25% of calves out of Johne's cows are BORN infected. The organism is shed in feces, so any fecal contamination/ingestion is a risk - and we also know that Johne's cows also shed the organism in colostrum and milk, so even if calves 'escape' in utero infection, they are at risk from ingesting the organism in colostrum/milk, or from feces on the dam's udder - and throughout the environment.
Studies have also shown that the organism can survive for extended periods - over a year - in the environment, especially in moist, damp areas around waterers, feedbunks, etc. Soil pH also seems to have some effect on environmental persistence - acid soil conditions favor survival of the organism.
 
Oh bummer! This is not good. Do you know of any way to kill any bacteria that may be living in the environment--in the ground, barn, etc.? The rest of our cattle are currently healthy, and I do not want them to get it. It could potentially wipe out the hole herd and prevent us from starting a new herd! We have one heifer from this cow, and she seems fine--no diarrhea which seems to be a predominant sign. I believe this cow most likely had Johne's when we purchased her which was 2 years ago. That's a lot of area where she could have spread the bacteria in that time.
 
We went through this in 08. We had one showing signs and tested positive so we tested all of our cows one that was not showing any signs at all and was fat as a pig also tested positive. They also both had calves. Thank goodness our herd only consisted of a total of 6 cows at the time. We euthanized both cows and their calves and this happened to be the only calves we had or we would have probably done away with that whole calf crop because anything that steals milk off of a infected cow will likely contract it. We traced ours back to the breeder we had bought from. The one showing all the signs dam had been showing the signs the others mother tested negative so she must have sucked off the infected cow. We also tillered under the area they were mainly in. So far yearly tested of all the cows we since got and the ones we still have from that same breeder have been negative. Good luck
 
Kim Cook,an Agriculturel Reseach Service microbiologist at the agency's Animal Waste Management Research Unit in Bowling Green, Ky.,thought that may be unknown sources of contamination on farms. She thought that water troughs would provide a perfect home for bacteria, so she counted the Mycobacteria in the slimey layers in water on the sides of the most commonly used troughs: concrete, plastic, stainless steel, galvanized steel. She wanted to see if there were differences in the ability of the bacteria to adhere to and survive on the surfaces of the different materials.She found high concentrations of the bacteria on all the troughs within 3 days of inoculating the water with the bacteria, and they survived for more than 149 days.But the bacteria was lowest on the stainless steel. When she added 3 tablespoons of chlorine bleach per 100 gals. of trough water weekly, she found that by the end of the third week, less than 1% of the bacteria remained on the stainless and galvanized steel troughs. On the other hand, 20% remained on the plastic, and 34% remained on the concrete troughs. She said based on these results, using stainless steel water troughs with chlorinated water should be one of the recommended practices included in any Johnes control plan.
 
Good source of general info & management recommendations is the Johne's website at UofWI: http://www.johnes.org/

You've got to consider all manure as potentially infectious, if you know you have the disease in your herd. Control is mainly aimed at identifying infected/potentially-infected animals, removing them from the herd, and minimizing exposure to manure, especially for young animals.
 

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