[Jacob-list] OPP and Johnes Testing

[Higgins]

Heel low:

"Neal and Louise Grose" <nlgrose at yadtel.net> wrote:

My turn now to ask...it's that "other" disease...hee hee...

>   Your vet is giving excellent advice when he cautions to test for
Johne's
> disease as well as OPP.

And my vet commented that the three way test I want to have done for
OPP/Johnnes/Caseous...that the Johnnes test is not believed to be
accurate at all...has anyone heard different as I too agree that Johnnes
is one of those bady bady diseases!

> Johne's is a MUCH more serious disease because it can be easily spread

> environmentally and can cross between species.

Cattle may have it...that is why using cow colostrum in a snatch and
raise lamb program is not fool proof.

> It also will result in chronic wasting disease and it is complicated
to get a
> definitive test on it.

Ah ha...so are we doomed to not know--sigh!!!

> Intentionally orphaning lambs and bottle feeding them to eradicate OPP
is
> non-productive if you give them milk from a Johne's animal, you are
merely
> trading one disease for a worse one.

What you cannot find out is if that flaked cow colostrum stuff you get
at the feed store is Johnnes free.  I have a sheep vet who was willing
to get some cow colostrum from a Johnnes free dairy farm. Dairy farms I
believe, regularly test the cattle for the presence of Johnnes...is the
cow test more accurate than the sheep test...anyone know why that is?
Same test, different species or??

The options I have on anti-Johnnes colostrum is no colostrum at all and
to feed normal lamb replacer, but to vaccinate at weaning day of 15 or
16 days (yeh, that young!  You feed soyabean meal...palatable and does
not mess with under developed ruminen...off that OPP Concerned Sheep
Breeders' Society web site--this info is so cool!) with 7-way.

There is also a method of heat treating colostrum to kill the Johne's
disease...I sorta shudder over this because you want to keep the
colostrum for an hour at under 140 degrees F and above 130 degrees
F...so what if you goof it and the disease survives...sounds like an
awful long time to find out months later or even years...that you can't
cook at a constant temperature...hee hee, this spoken by the flame and
broil queen of the North!  Is it blackened yet...hee hee, no, really, I
AM a good cook...my body projects the conformation of a really good cook
too!  ;-)

>     OPP, on the other hand is NOT spread easily by contact unless you
have a
> strongly symptomatic sheep coughing up stuff in to a feeder.

I have been told a two percent chance...sounds slim to me.  OPP virus
off sheep is suppose to live for a few minutes...this makes having two
flocks, one clean, one exposed/infected a viable way to eliminate the
disease.  I am hoping to put this to the test myself.

Doggone,

Tara
--
     ____(\                Tara Lee Higgins                  /)____
    (_____~>        Rat Ranch - An ACD is for LIFE          <~_____)
   ( ``  ``          ranchrat at telusplanet.net                ``  `` )
    \                      Alberta Canada                          /
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