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I
remember as a child watching a particular western movie — John Wayne,
I think. Anyway at some point in the movie one of the cowboys said to
another, "Son, you’ve just bought yourself a peck of
trouble."
I
wonder what a peck of trouble looks like. I suppose it could look like
any number of things, like a basket full of rattlesnakes or snapping
turtles to such intangible things like bad will between a couple of
cowboys. One thing is certain, trouble is still out there on the open
market and people are still buying it.
I
want to spend a little time talking about the kind of trouble livestock
producers can purchase in the form of disease. Bringing disease into a
herd of livestock is costly, but with some firewalls in place, can be
highly preventable.
It
is not an uncommon practice to purchase a new horse or a few cows or
calves, and if they look healthy, to go ahead and turn them out into the
pasture. I can recollect many times when that practice has led to an
absolute train wreck. Often animals that have been through a sale have
been stressed to some degree and at the same time exposed to various
viruses. The purchased additions, like the old Trojan horse in Greek
history, seem fine to be brought into the herd. Then a few days later,
several animals in the herd become ill.
I
know some of you reading this article now are thinking of the time you
bought a horse that gave most of the herd strangles. Others, or even the
across-the-fence neighbor, have bought calves that gave the whole herd a
respiratory illness.
The
examples previously given are very real and fairly common. They are
expensive, time consuming and frustrating. However, those situations can
usually be worked through with enough time and pharmaceuticals. There
are other times when producers "buy trouble" that cannot
simply be worked through. There are diseases like Johne’s disease,
anaplasmosis, Equine Infectious Anemia (EIA) and Brucellosis that can be
considered "purchased diseases. These diseases are not brought in
by wildlife or on the shoes or clothing of farm visitors, nor do they
just float in on the prevailing winds. They come in through healthy
looking animals, later to make their way into the herd and establish
residence.
Two
of the diseases, EIA and brucellosis, are regulated diseases and require
some quarantine, further testing and, at least, some depopulation, if
not the complete herd in the case of brucellosis. The problem with
anaplasmosis, an infection attacking the red blood cells of cattle, is
not so much the acutely sick animal but the animals that are chronic
carriers, yet are not sick. These carriers seem to be an adequate
reservoir for the disease to be transmitted to susceptible animals
through ticks, flies and anything else transferring blood from
cow-to-cow, like used hypodermic needles.
Then
there’s Johne’s disease, a chronic, incurable, wasting diarrhea in
cattle. Johne’s disease is a very difficult disease to corral because
of the causative organism’s ability to exist in the environment for up
to several weeks. Therefore, simply testing and culling positive cattle
will not necessarily clear up the problem. Another obstacle in ridding a
herd of the disease is a calf may be infected with the organism at a
very young age and not only not show signs of illness, but may continue
to test negative for the disease until it is much older. When Johne’s
disease invades a herd, the process of clearing the herd may be
extremely difficult. The disease is probably more of a problem in dairy
cattle because of management practices that concentrate cattle and
calves. Nevertheless, Johne’s in a beef cow herd can be, and usually
is more than just a hindrance. A decrease in milk production in
otherwise healthy cattle is common in both beef and dairy cattle and
lowers the bottom line. Sometimes the truly sick cow that wastes away
because of the chronic diarrhea may only be the tip of the iceberg.
There
are some management practices that can be employed to keep the risk of
introducing a new disease into the herd. First there is quarantine. This
is not a legal government-issued quarantine, but one that the producer
uses to keep new animals separated from the other animals for a period
of time — say 2-4 weeks. Another tool possibly used is to require
testing for certain diseases before adding animals to your herd. You may
require a negative Coggin’s test on any horse you purchase or a
negative Bovine Viral Diarrhea (BVD) before adding cattle to your herd.
You may want to try to purchase replacement stock from someone with whom
you are familiar and know the history of their herd health. Other sales
require certain negative tests before allowing the animals into the
sales. These along with good biosecurity measures can go a long way in
keeping your herd healthy.
Finally,
it is worth mentioning that even using best management practices,
sometimes breaks occur and new diseases are introduced. Still the old
saying about "the best offense is a good defense" remains
true. And being from the South Eastern Conference, we know defense wins
ballgames. Well, it also keeps diseases out. There is still trouble out
there that can be bought, but sometimes you would probably be better off
with a basket full of rattlesnakes or snapping turtles. |
