Editor’s note: This is the second half of a two-part series on Johne’s Disease. The first part, published last week, described' the disease and its control. This article contains a summary of how three Lancaster County dairy farmers are battling the disease. BY' LISA RISSER LANCASTER After the ini tial shock, when the implications of the disease sinks in, dairy farm ers with Johne’s in their herd want to know one thing: how do I get rid of it? Current estimates place the fre quency of Johne’s as high as one in every five Pennsylvanian cows, More conservative estimates place the infection rate as 7.2 percent in Pennsylvania and in the Northeast. Lancaster County has its share of Johne’s-positive cows. Three producers troubled with the dis ease recently shared their experi ences with farmers and veterinar ians attending the Johne’s infor mational meeting at the Farm & Home Center last week. Millie Widmann and Axel Linde of Oxford, Paul Trimble of Peach Bottom, and Nelson Wen ger of Manheim all are attempting to eliminate Johne’s from their herds. Widmann and Linde are a brother and sister team that farm Lindenhoff Farms, a registered Guernsey operation. They first dis covered Johne’s in their herd of 48 milking cows in April of 1983. A whole-herd test revealed that 16 out of the 42 were Johne’s posi tive; that translates into 38 percent of the herd. Our 12 inch goosen improves your Harvestore. Lancaster Level-Flo’s replacement gooseneck lets you fill your silo fester and easier. It has a 33% larger capac ity than original goose necks and its high-profile shape improves flow. You can actually blow in 3 tons of haylage'a minute without plugging the Level-Flo 12" gooseneck. Yet it attaches easily to standard 9" fill-pipe. Our gooseneck’s completely enclosed design keeps silage off the roof of your silo. Not only does this eliminate waste, it extends the life of the silo roof. Heneston* a a rag Hied Wdamark at AO Smtti, Inc See your authorized Lancaster LeveHfe dealer. BADGER’S AGRI GLASS LINED LAPP’S BARN SERVICE STRUCTURES EQUIPMENT Dlllsburg, PA Rothsvllle, PA Gap, PA 717-432-8377 717-626-7456 717-442-8134 LANCASTER LEVELftOBB tgf CHQUBB ROAR MOUNT XX, RA 17862 7IMBM2M Dealing With “The first thing we did was try to be present at the calvings,” said Widmann. “We had a clean pen and clean cow, and the moment die calf dropped, we moved it to a clean stall. We hand strip the cow and feed the calf within 30 to 60 minutes. Thereafter we only feed whole-milk milk replacer.” Three weeks prior to calving, the cow is clipped at the tail, pins, udder, flank, and legs and moved to the clean pen. Newborns are placed under a heat lamp and rubbed with a towel, and as soon as they are dried, are placed into a hutch where they stay for two months. In the summer of ’B4, Widmann and Linde had a 500-foot heifer bam constructed on a nearby hill. A Virginia-style enclosure, the heifer bam contains six pens in which the young stock stay until they are 12 months old. From there they are moved to another bam where they are watched for heats and bred. “Any time we go to the calf bam we make sure our boots are washed off and that no manure is on them,” said Widmann. “We also turn our sweatshirts inside out (when the newborns are moved) just in case germs might be on them.” The partners have been culling positive cows right from the start. Six of the original 16 were culled before the initial test results were completed. The other 10, for which Widmann and Linde received indemnity payments on nine, were sold immediately. The state only recognized nine of the 10 as posi tive and therefore eligible for inde mnity. Using a tissue test of the With an outer shell of galvanized steel, the Level-Flo 12" gooseneck stays bright and shiny for years. And it contains an inner liner of extremely wear-resistant stainless steel. • Designed with final section straight and vertical to put silage in the cento of your silo. • And it’s almost 50% less expen sive than a Harvestore® replace ment gooseneck. Johne’s From Experience ileo cecal valve, state officials received a negative result on one animal. Every animal, six months and older, is tested twice a year. Posi tives are culled immediately. “We’ve done 11 whole-Herd tests, and we’ve reduced the number (of positive animals) with each test,” said Widmann.'“On the last two tests, we had four positive animals. We didn’t take the indemnity on them because of all the paperwork involved and because the farm could withstand (the loss) finan cially. We also didn’t take it because we knew there were other farmers out there who needed it more.” Widmann and Linde are await ing the results from their last lest, anticipating that it may not reveal any positive animals. “The economic loss is difficult to estimate,” she said. Among the losses the pair had include selling 1 cows for meat instead of dairy purchases, keeping low producers in order to cull Johne’s positive cows, and lower milk production. “Loss due to Johne’s easily exceeds $50,000 over the last six years,” Widmann commented. Paul Trimble has no idea how Johne’s got into his 100-milking head Jersey herd. (See the April 30,1988 issue of Lancaster Fann ing for a complete story on Trimble’s battle with Johne’s.) His veterinarian diagnosed the first clinical case in the fall of 1985 and a whole-herd test was done nearly a year later. Although only one clinical case has been diag nosed in the past few years, he has culled more than 20 cows. Like Widmann and Linde, Trimble has clean, freshly bedded maternity pens and he separates calves from cows as soon as possi ble. He too hand strips the cow and feeds the colostrum to the calf. Trimble is very concerned about Johne’s on both a private and a state level. “The economic losses attributed to Johne’s disease are staggering,” he stated. “If a farmer should have to disperse his Johne’s-infected herd, it could mean financial ruin. The inability to sell registered dairy replace ments, the genetic loss, and the los ses of milk production all contri bute to the wastage attributed to Johne’s.” Trimble has called for the state to expand its testing facilities and indemnity program. Nelson Wenger built an envi able herd of high-producing Hols- Uncmir Farming Sturdiy, April 8,19W-DIJ teins only to have it invaded by Johne’s. (Read the April 23; 1988 issue of Lancaster Farming for Wenger’s complete story.) He suspects the disease was introduced by a heifer that he pur chased at a breed promotional sale in 1980. Wenger culled the first Johne’s positive animal in 1984 and another 10 during the next two years before he and his vet realized what was happening. A whole herd test performed in December of 1986 resulted in 14 positive ani mals out of 62. He discovered that Johne’s was partly being spread from barnyard runoff when the family garden and the calf hutches traded places. The hutches had been located in a field on the lower side of the bam and runoff was traveling through the hutches. The calf hutches are now in no danger of barnyard runoff. As the three other farmers, Wenger attends calvings and sepa rates calves from cows immediate ly. He, too, takes the time to clean the cows and pens before calving.
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