Rustler9
Well-known member
Here's a situation for any of you who might know something about Johnes disease. I am a little familiar with it but probably not enough. My neighbor has a first calf beef heifer (she's probably coming three) that started loosing weight back about two months ago. He had the vet come out and check her and the vet said that she may have Johnes, we'll do some tests on her and send them off. He gave some vitamin shots and some antibiotics and also some pills (I'm not sure what they were) as well as some probiotics. The heifer had weaned a pretty nice calf, she was a good milker. She began to loose weight pretty fast, had a real foul smelling diarreah (sp?), had a listless look about her, would not eat. After he gave her the shots and pills (probably about three weeks of treatment, shots for three to five days and pills each day) she began to get her appetite back and started to gain her weight back, her manure thickened up and started to look normal. She is now not completely back to her normal weight but doesn't look bad, she will be back to her normal weight in another three weeks or so.
The neighbor just called me and told me that after all of this time the vet has called and told him that the heifer has Johnes. Everything that I have read about it says that they get weak and continue to loose weight, they literally starve themselves to death even though they have a good appetite. What do ya'll think about this? Have any of you ever had Johnes in your cattle? From what I've read, there's nothing about the cow recovering and gaining the weight back. The neighbor thinks that he may have to put the cow down but my advice was to have the vet do fecal and blood tests again to be sure. I wouldn't want to risk passing it onto my other cattle but I would want or be sure that the diagnosis is correct before I put her down. To me the symptoms don't really go with the disease. I didn't think that a cow would bounce back after getting so sick if it's truly Johnes. Even the vet said so. I wonder if maybe the lab got the samples mixed up with someone else's? What would you do if this were your cow? He asked me and I don't know-I 'm sure I would retest her. I've seen the cow and how sick she was, and also how much she has recovered. Anybody else ever had this type of thing to happen?
The neighbor just called me and told me that after all of this time the vet has called and told him that the heifer has Johnes. Everything that I have read about it says that they get weak and continue to loose weight, they literally starve themselves to death even though they have a good appetite. What do ya'll think about this? Have any of you ever had Johnes in your cattle? From what I've read, there's nothing about the cow recovering and gaining the weight back. The neighbor thinks that he may have to put the cow down but my advice was to have the vet do fecal and blood tests again to be sure. I wouldn't want to risk passing it onto my other cattle but I would want or be sure that the diagnosis is correct before I put her down. To me the symptoms don't really go with the disease. I didn't think that a cow would bounce back after getting so sick if it's truly Johnes. Even the vet said so. I wonder if maybe the lab got the samples mixed up with someone else's? What would you do if this were your cow? He asked me and I don't know-I 'm sure I would retest her. I've seen the cow and how sick she was, and also how much she has recovered. Anybody else ever had this type of thing to happen?
