johnes disease

[gumby271]

I bought a cow with a set of twins on her from a local auction mart in april 04. I noticed she was in bad shape when i bought her. The owner said he had no feed. I brought her home, gave her tlc and she was doing very well. I put the calves on dairy milk to take the strain off of her. Now she is very boney, drewls, grinds her teeth, a grain pig,first and last at a feeder. To me these are symptoms of johnes disease. If it is, can her calves get it?

 

[dun]

I bought a cow with a set of twins on her from a local auction mart in april 04. I noticed she was in bad shape when i bought her. The owner said he had no feed. I brought her home, gave her tlc and she was doing very well. I put the calves on dairy milk to take the strain off of her. Now she is very boney, drewls, grinds her teeth, a grain pig,first and last at a feeder. To me these are symptoms of johnes disease. If it is, can her calves get it?

Beofre jumping to conclusions, have a vet test her. If she has it, so do the calves

dun

 

[Rustler9]

Yep. Take Dun's advice and have her tested. Hopefully she doesn't have Johnes. If she does, she'll have to be put down, you don't want this spreading to the rest of your herd. I believe that this germ will survive in the soil for up to a year. Keep her separated from the other cattle until you know for sure. They do not need to drink or eat after her, your bull does not need to breed her. If she has it the calves do too but I've been told that it's ok to market them as beef. I'm sure we've all eaten plenty of dairy cows with Johnes unknowingly. Good luck.

 

[TheBullLady]

Definately sounds like Johnes. If you don't have a lot of $$ in her, I'd ship her immediately. Her calves need to be separated from the rest of the herd and marketed as well. As mentioned previously, they can still be fattened up for butchering, but don't keep them as breeders. There are some instances where the calves don't get the disease, but it's a "crap shoot" and you're risking the others in the herd.

Good luck. I hate to say it.. but another good reason not to buy at an auction barn. (That should start a war)

 

[la4angus]

I bought a cow with a set of twins on her from a local auction mart in april 04. I noticed she was in bad shape when i bought her. The owner said he had no feed. I brought her home, gave her tlc and she was doing very well. I put the calves on dairy milk to take the strain off of her. Now she is very boney, drewls, grinds her teeth, a grain pig,first and last at a feeder. To me these are symptoms of johnes disease. If it is, can her calves get it?

Why fool around with a sick cow. Have her tested and sell her. If she has Johnes, sell her calves too. Then have your whole herd tested.

 

[Texan]

Now she is very boney, drewls, grinds her teeth, a grain pig,first and last at a feeder. To me these are symptoms of johnes disease.

To me, these are also symptoms of a broke mouth cow that's been working like Hell to meet her nutritional requirements. You neglected to mention how old she is. But an old cow with a bad mouth will have the symptoms you have described, including doing very well with TLC, as you mentioned.

 

[greatgerts]

This disease has hit us hard over the last 10 years, and we have done every step to stop it, well, we could stop buying cattle. Anyways, our vet gave us a bunch of literature, and there is like a 6-12% chance of a calf getting it through the placenta, and about the same percentage of getting it through milk, and additional chances of through fecal matter.
All I can say is get the cow tested, and sell all related to her if she comes up positive.

 

[msscamp]

Once a cow has tested positive for Johnes Disease they cannot be sold through a sale barn. They can only be sold for slaughter. The following is from http://WWW.Johnes.Org and states:

Rules about paratuberculosis governing inter-state movement of cattle are found in the Code of Federal Regulations 9CFR parts 80 and 71 concerning Johne's disease. Proposed changes to the CFR parts 80 and 71 were published for comment on March 22, 1999. The comment period closed May 21, 1999. These changes became effective May 10, 2000. Key provisions include: 1) cattle that test positive for Johne's disease by an organism detection based test, such as fecal culture-positive, be moved interstate to slaughter only, and 2) such animals must move on an owner/shipper statement.

 

[dun]

This may be on interest

http://ianrpubs.unl.edu/animaldisease/g977.htm

dun

 

[Michelle Pankonien]

Do not buy replacements from the sale barn

Yep people do it, don't buy from them either

Buy from reputable breeders who have a good herd health program, there are enough breeders out there doing it right that you can get good cattle from them

Buying from the sale bare without herd testing is a wreck looking for a place to happen

Test Test Test, this is the only way to avoid getting Johnes positive cattle and avoid waisting disease in your herd

Yes cattle that are positive can be managed and sorted into a different group, but with the current price of cull cows at $70 or close to it, you can afford to put wheels under them, and make money at it to boot

If you have a Donor fine, Flush the hell out of her, but transfer to Johnes Negative recips

 

[Hawk]

Michelle, a question for you. Are you implying that ranchers that buy and sell cattle through auctions are not reputable, and don't have good herd health management programs? The last thing I want to do is to get into a debate over this issue with a fellow Aggie, but please be aware that there are thousands of great ranching operations out here that raise commercial cross bred calves for the feedlots that neither want or need registered purebred cows. For generations, some of the best cattlemen and women in the world have been buying and selling a quality product through sale barns. If an auction regularly sold inferior cattle, I believe that they would quickly be out of business because people would quit buying there. I have no financial interest whatsoever in any sale barn, but I do utilize their services regularly. I thought your strong statements condemning auctions and those who use them both insulting and self-serving. Asking someone who raises registered cattle how they feel about sale barns is sort of asking a new car dealer how he feels about used cars. Both of them will probably tell you that it is a wreck looking for a place to happen. There is certainly a place in our diverse industry for breeders of registered stock and for private treaty sales, but there is also a very valid place for auctions. There is clearly room for both options and there are many equally reputable, ethical, hard working ranchers in both camps.

 

[Texan]

Great post, Hawk!!!

 

[dun]

Great post, Hawk!!!

I'll second that!

dun

 

[Michelle Pankonien]

Yes,

There are many many herds that utilize the sale barn to sell their cattle, and unless you have personal relationships with individual buyers and sellers, it is " Buyer Beware" in terms of health status on an each animal, unless the herds you are buying from are Johnes, Bang and TB certified free herds and that is published or spoken prior to the sale of the animal

BUYER BEWARE


Sale Barns also hold Breed/Seedstock sales, dispersal sales ect.

Because Johnes is not a federaly monitored disease it is not manditory to health test for this disease, We test annually, and at the request of buyers, it is a good service to provide, and will lend crediblity to your herd health program, and the quality and consistency of the cattle you provide

This disease is not as critical as BSE, the only tests available for this are brain tissue tests, thus depopulation and tissue tests are all we have to go by, Johnes on the other hand, we have two test ELISA and fecal, for cattle that test positive on the ELISA, test again with fecal to varify positive animals and sort into different managment groups or cull.

Sale barn are great, I use them myself for culls, and so do lots of other ranchers, and small herd owners, 50 and under herds.

Greater premiums are acheived through retained ownership and private marketing of your stocker calves, a little homework can pay great dividends, when cattle are marketed outside the sale barn.

 

[greatgerts]

A herd from a reputable breeder with good herd health management can have Johne's as well. That is where I got my cases from(each time). They came from 2 different herds, but those breeders were producing cattle that most people in the country wanted.
Sometimes the cow will not show it, or even come up positive with it, but still be carrying it, and then some stress will make it flare up. It is a real weird disease to figure out all of the exacts on.