Dairy gone under.....is it common?

[ycanchu2]

Its a sad story.....I run into a long time friend of mine the other day. He and his wife's family have run a very large Jersey dairy within 30 or so miles of where I live. He told me they had gotten a certain kind of disease in their herd that they couldn't cure, that effected the milk to where all they could do was pour it down the drain. One of the specialist from the university told them they might slow it down but would never cure it. Here they are in their late 60's and some older and said they were losing everything, farm, homes, everything. Very, very sad.
Does anyone know what this(disease) could be and is it a common occurence?
I'm not a dairy farmer so I don't have clue.

[matt_man]

Brucellosis?

[bigbluegrass]

My guess would be Johnes.

[arnie]

Johnes can infect a hole herd

[matt_man]

As far as I know, they don't dump because of Johnes. They claim the bacterium is killed during the pastuerization process.

[RedDirt Cowgirl]

Anthrax ? It look out a lot of ranchers in the West around the 30's & 40's

[G. Seddon]

Originally Posted by RedDirt Cowgirl

Anthrax ? It look out a lot of ranchers in the West around the 30's & 40's

Yikes, if it were anthrax, I think it would have hit the front page! Cattle die fast from that.

I think Kentucky is listed as a TB and brucellosis-free state, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be the problem.

Perhaps some of you dairy folks out there would know what could cause this to happen. Aren't dairies required to routinely test their cows and the milk?

[CCCC]

Was it a disease or was it mycotoxin's in the feed?

Anthrax will come out at times of drought.

Have heard of dairy farmers dumping milk due to high Alfatoxin levels in milk from drought stressed feed, but not disease.

Unless thier Somatic Cell Count was too high for some reason, but that can be dealt with on some level to my understanding.

Not sure, but would like to know what disease would affect the whole herd and the milk.

[ycanchu2]

The cattle weren't dying to the best of my knowledge. He said they were treating it with all the antibiotics they could and he said they were injecting shots into the udder. The way I understand it is that it has been an on going problem for a year or so. I don't think they have even milked for over a year now. It could have been something in the soil, but it was something that wasn't cureable and not something that changing feed would fix.
They were in so deep financially that they couldn't change course, it has just taken a long time for the foreclosure to take place.
They milked about 200 hd of Jerseys and went to the state fair every year with their show cattle. Just a shame.

[matt_man]

Any milk from cows treated with antibiotics has to be dumped. I wonder if the whole herd contracted Staph A. It could easily be spread to a whole herd by uncleanly practices and is nearly impossible to cure.

[ycanchu2]

I was talking to friend of mine who used to milk cows about 30 years ago said it was probably some type of severe mastitis. He said the milk companies, FDA or whoever sets the regulations have made the allowable bacteria count so low that it was almost impossible to meet.
But still not sure if that was it or not.

[Calfkeeper]

The only reason I could think of for injecting antibiotics into the udder would be for mastitis, as your friend stated. But as far as I know that's not something that they can't eliminate from a herd. Is it? And I can't think that it'd be that communicable that they'd have to sell the whole herd. Hmmmm...interesting.

[Calfkeeper]

Oh, cell count and bacteria count requirements are pretty low, but if you keep on top of it, it isn't that hard to keep down.

[springvalley]

I have no clue, sounds bad, think I would have called the trucks in and got rid of the herd. But with antibiotics, you have a waiting period for cull. > Marc