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Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 7:27 pm
by domsmith
My oldest and leading female has just been diagnosed as having johnes desease.
she had a sudden loss of condition and a scour, i thought it was accute fluke but it is johnes.
the vet is pesamistic and says he cant do anything else, he says they sometime recover enough to put weight on so they can be got away, but thats not the answer i was looking for. she is losing weight rapidly and i feel i have only a week or so to make a difference before i will lose her.
any advice or ideas would be appreciated
dom
Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 8:33 pm
by Duncan MacIntyre
With your own vet involved I cannot but in and advise on an individual case, so any remarks here by me on Johnes Disease are general.
The bacteria which cause it are of the same family as TB - Mycobacterium Johnei. It grows in the cells lining the intestine and slowly stops proper absorbtion, hence the loss of weight and scour. It is invariably fatal though in the early stages there may be a slight remision though this cannot be relied on. It has a very long incubation period, which, together with persistence in pasture makes it very hard to get rid of. I always advise immediate culling of known cases to reduce the contamination of ground as quickly as possible. Most cases are probably infectected as calves though no signs are seen till generally between 2 years and 6 years old. Calves are infected by contamination from the dam getting in by mouth when suckling, licking contaminated locks of cows hair etc. In dairy farms infection is easily spread by sharing colostrum and this should not be done on farms where infection is established. Largely because of the risk of infection as a newborn it is always recommended not to keep heifers off of cows which have been confirmed as clinical cases.
Most of the organised health schemes such as Premiere Cattle Health and Hi Health are very recluctant to say that any herd is "Johnes Free". They normally recommmend that every animal over 2yrs is blood tested annually and any positive are culled. I usually push clients to get rid of any showing any significant rise in antibodies even if they have not reached the stage of being considered positive.
Most of my career has been on Bute and here we have rarely seen more than odd individual cases, one exception being a group of bought in heifers on one farm which caused a nasty outbreak. Within a few years 11 out of 14 in the group had gone down, and years later we are still mopping up odd reactors to the blood test. I know of vets in other areas who have beef herds loosing 10% of their cows every year to Johnes.
I think anyone who gets it in their herd needs to be quite ruthless in culling to get rid of it, it can be a painful business in a pedigree herd.
There is a vaccine but it is not usually used unless all else has failed to control it.
I have never had any in my herd, and I am not a member of any official scheme, but I do test all my adult stock periodically just in case.
Sorry if that all sounds a bit serious, but I would suggest a good talk with your vet and let them know you are keen to do what it takes to get rid of this.
Duncan
Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 9:14 pm
by domsmith
This cow came from argyl last february as a group of 9 cows in calf.
the vet didnt seem to be to excited by it and didnt give me any urgency to get rid of her.
there is no point in keeping her going then if nothing can be done, i might as well give up.
gutted.
dom
Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 9:32 pm
by Broomcroft
Sorry to hear that Dominic, what a bummer.
Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 1:42 pm
by Colin
Dom I'm really sorry to hear of your situation and very much feel for you. You've probably already done this but there is a lot of information on the internet if you google Johne's disease. Acting quickly is a message that comes through, very much reinforcing what Duncan has said.
Colin
Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 6:17 pm
by tooloos
when i worked on a commercial beef farm we bought a bull in which unfortunately went lame after two weeks, the people said we could have the young bulls father on hire until ours was sound enough to work again. After about two weeks this bull started scouring and lost all condition. this bull had johnes disease so we looked into it and apparently limousin cattle are almost riddled with it, especially on farms who import a lot of cattle. We were told it could also get into your pasture if excreted by the animal and in France on certain farms with serious problems the only way to keep on top of it is spreading lime .
Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 7:24 pm
by jeanthomas
So sorry to hear of your plight. I guess its 'murphys law', any one of us could have bought those cows in? Never considered it before, but maybe your awful experience has helped everyone on this forum, in that next time we buy one/some in we should be more careful about isolating them and getting our vet out to test for what ever??
jean
Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 2:26 am
by Minnie
I'm so sorry Dominic, it's a terrible feeling when these things happen. 
We spent three months waiting on Johnnes tests for one of our alpacas, he came from a certified Johnnes free farm but it did look as though he had it... thankfully he didn't just a bad case of worms and very run down.
I hope the others stay free of it for you.
Vicki