Johne’s disease is a bacterial disease of cattle, which can have a negative economic impact on farms. With calving gathering speed, it’s important to keep the necessary steps in mind to limit the spread of this costly disease.
Also Read: What is Johne's disease?The Irish Johne’s Control Programme (IJCP), operated by Animal Health Ireland (AHI), is developing a long-term programme to control Johne’s disease, within the Irish cattle industry.
According to AHI, cattle usually become infected as calves early in life by drinking milk or eating food contaminated with the bacteria, which are shed in the dung or milk of infected adult cattle.
Calves are the most susceptible animals on a farm to the disease for which there is no cure and even a very small amount of dung on a dirty udder can contain enough bacteria to infect a suckling calf.
Very commonly, signs of Johne’s disease won’t actually be visible until the animal has had three or more calves.
Signs of Johne’s disease:
- Reduced production, lower milk yields and lower feed conversion efficiency;
- Weight loss, despite a good appetite;
- Scour (not bloody) and ultimately emaciation;
- Soft swelling of the jaw or brisket;
- Death.
Remove The Calf As Soon As Possible From The Calving Pen
The early removal of a calf from the calving pen, AHI says, reduces exposure to contaminated bedding and from direct exposure to a potentially infected cow. By carrying out this action, the risk of calves attempting to suckle from a cow with a dirty udder or teats is reduced.
It is also critical to maintain hygiene levels within calving pens. The calving pens should be frequently and thoroughly cleaned. At the very least, sufficient fresh bedding should be put down between calvings to ensure that the pen floor is dry and clean between calvings.
Clean Colostrum Collection
As the disease is mainly spread via the faecal oral route, it’s essential that you make sure that the cow’s udder is clean before collecting colostrum.
Furthermore, to limit the spread of the disease, it’s important to wash your hands and to ensure that the containers, tubes and buckets that come in contact with the cow’s first milk are carefully washed between each use.
Feed Colostrum And Milk From Test-Negative Cows
As a general practice, AHI says, it’s best to feed colostrum and milk from cows that have tested negative as part of a whole-herd test.
Milk from test-positive cows presents an increased risk to calves for a number of reasons. Firstly, if dung from these animals accidentally contaminates buckets, calves have a much greater exposure to infection.
Even just collecting colostrum or milk from such animals increases the risk from an aerosol spread of infection and, in some instances, test-positive cows may be secreting bacteria into colostrum and milk.
AHI strongly recommends that the use of pooled milk should be avoided, as it is a major risk to calves becoming infected by Johne’s disease.