Johnne's disease

farmgirl6 · #1 04/14/12, 08:52 PM

You guys know me, I am a worry wart, never heard of Johnne's disease so now of course I am obsessed, how do I test for it? how common is it? how could you tell if your cow had it?

myersfarm · #2 04/14/12, 11:54 PM

YOU could get a lot of info if you did a GOOGLE search for it

springvalley · #3 04/15/12, 07:39 AM

Well unless your cows have come off of a large dairy, I doubt you would have it. Cows go down hill, getting thin, pooh is very runny most all the time. And then they die, so unless your buying from a large dairy, sale barn, or livestock dealer, I wouldn`t sweat it. But if you have to, your vet can test to see if you have it. > Thanks Marc

Cliff · #4 04/15/12, 08:00 AM

Johne's symptoms start with the poo getting so loose that is shoots straight out of the cow. Their tail and hocks get and stay nasty. Nothing you do helps the loose stool, it's a bacterial issue in the intestines, some kind of mycobacterium if I remember right. The cow quickly looses condition because they are unable to absorb nutrients from their feed. I brought home a cow from a dairy once who was in the first stages of being symptomatic, just the runny poo. It was early spring so at first everyone just thought it was the spring pastures. Nope. She tested positive and the farmer took her back and ran her thru the sale barn but it was too late, my property was contaminated

The organism can live in soil for over a year. Never buy sale barn cows, that is where the Johne's culls go and their poop contaminates everything.

Usually cows are exposed to it very young and don't become symptomatic till they are stressed - it's common for it to show up when the cow freshens for the first time. But I lost one of my older Jerseys to it that was here when the infected cow was here. She was around 6 when her symptoms showed up.

You should google it, I just put the very basics here.

farmgirl6 · #5 04/15/12, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cliff

Johne's symptoms start with the poo getting so loose that is shoots straight out of the cow. Their tail and hocks get and stay nasty. Nothing you do helps the loose stool, it's a bacterial issue in the intestines, some kind of mycobacterium if I remember right. The cow quickly looses condition because they are unable to absorb nutrients from their feed. I brought home a cow from a dairy once who was in the first stages of being symptomatic, just the runny poo. It was early spring so at first everyone just thought it was the spring pastures. Nope. She tested positive and the farmer took her back and ran her thru the sale barn but it was too late, my property was contaminated

The organism can live in soil for over a year. Never buy sale barn cows, that is where the Johne's culls go and their poop contaminates everything.

Usually cows are exposed to it very young and don't become symptomatic till they are stressed - it's common for it to show up when the cow freshens for the first time. But I lost one of my older Jerseys to it that was here when the infected cow was here. She was around 6 when her symptoms showed up.

You should google it, I just put the very basics here.

did some google, but didn't give me a real "feel" for how common it was, how specifically to avoid it, prefer to go right to the folks who have lived it!

FMO3 · #6 04/15/12, 06:33 PM

They estimate, that about 25 to 40% of all cattle have Johnes in the US. When they have the loose stools, that is only when they have broken with the disease. They may never break with it, but be carriers.

The best way, is to do a fecal test. They take 8 weeks to get the results back. Blood tests are ok, they take a couple of days to get the results. So, really depends on how long you want to wait to get the results back.

Not, all big dairies have Johnes, that just rakes my nerves when people say that. As most larger dairies, are on test with Johnes anymore. Since, a cow with Johnes will not milk as much as a negative animal. Also, most large dairies feed powder colostrum and milk replacer/pasteurized m waste milk. That is where most of the infections come from...raw milk fed to calves.

I have lived with it, we milked about 180 cows at the time. Grass based, no free stall housing at that time. We tested in 1988, with over 75% of the herd being some type of positive. It took us till 1996, to finally sell the last positive cow...was to be of a head ache at that point. We started pulling calves right at birth, fed powder colostrum and then milk replacer. Raised young stock away from older stock till they were 16 months of age. Basically we managed our way out of the disease. We still bought cattle...as we were a registered show herd. But, when we tested it open our eyes to many things. As we did the tests with the State Vets, they tested for Johnes, BVD, Leukosis. After 8 years of managing our way out of Johnes, we also managed our way out of all of the above.

If you would like a website, there best is the UW-Madison's. JOHNE'S INFORMATION CENTER They are helping people get the disease out of large herds and small herds.

springvalley · #7 04/15/12, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by farmgirl6

did some google, but didn't give me a real "feel" for how common it was, how specifically to avoid it, prefer to go right to the folks who have lived it!

There you go farmgirl6 ^^^^ right above, FMO3 has lived it. Sounds bad doesn`t it.

Does anyone now where this illness came from in the first place ??? > Thanks Marc

FMO3 · #8 04/15/12, 08:39 PM

Johnes has always been around, the test was refined in the early 80's really to make it to where people could test for for the bacterium. It was first found in Europe, then testing became more popular.

I would be worried about it, if you bought from a smaller herd, I would be more cautious. Since, the level of smaller herds that have not tested is higher. The tests are not that expensive. $8 at the UW-Madison, that is for the blood or milk assays. Also, most DHIA labs will test for Johnes at about the same price. To me, if someone will not pay the $8 for a test, I am not going to spend the money to buy from them. As most registered cattle sales anymore, you have to have a negative test on the animal before it can be sold. Young calves, are the exceptions, as you can not test a 4 week old calf.

goodhors · #9 04/15/12, 09:09 PM

Our Farm Bureau News had an article about testing water tanks for prevention of the spread of Johnes disease. This article was in there last year. Made for interesting reading.

Anyway in the study, they used a variety of tanks, put things in the water and left it plain.

Oddly enough, the stainless steel water users had no spread of the disease. This was with water left untreated. Sorry I can't remember the source of the testing information, or the month the article was in that paper. We get it because we have Farm Bureau Insurance, comes monthly. Article was small, which surprised me. Seems like a problem like Johnes disease that could be managed so easily with a stainless water tank, would have the news being shouted everywhere!

Anyway, hope it is useful information for you.

willow_girl · #10 04/15/12, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by springvalley

Well unless your cows have come off of a large dairy, I doubt you would have it. Cows go down hill, getting thin, pooh is very runny most all the time. And then they die, so unless your buying from a large dairy, sale barn, or livestock dealer, I wouldn`t sweat it. But if you have to, your vet can test to see if you have it. > Thanks Marc

I bought my first Jersey from a 14-cow Amish herd and lost her to Johne's.

When I was a tester, most of my larger farms tested regularly for Johne's. The smaller ones, not so much.