Ontario's Johne's program draws to a close

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

Once the dairy industry’s Johne’s education and management assistance program ends later this year farmers will no longer be able to get reimbursed for cow testing and other costs.

But George MacNaughton, Dairy Farmers of Ontario operations division director, says farmers can still have their herds tested, even without the program.

And although the program is ending, Dairy Farmers of Ontario is still interested in managing Johne’s in Ontario’s herds and keeping track of the disease’s prevalence in the provincial herd.

Johne’s is an incurable but preventable bacterial infection that affects the intestines of ruminants. Cows infected by the disease produce less milk even if they don’t show signs of sickness.
 
MacNaughton says “there are a number of things we’ll look at in terms of trying to motivate farms to review the situation and get it under control.”

MacNaughton says Dairy Farmers of Ontario will continue supporting Johne’s research and there are plans to collect milk samples from all Ontario dairy farms’ bulk tanks this spring to test for the infection. An advisory letter will be sent to farmers sometime this month, he notes.

MacNaughton says the testing is for a comparison study “so we can compare those that participated in the program to those that have not.”

Herd testing under the industry’s Johne’s education and management assistance program ends May 31 while the entire program comes to an end in October. The four-year program was funded by Dairy Farmers, the Ontario Association of Bovine Practitioners, CanWest DHI, the Holstein, Guernsey and Jersey breed associations, Ontario Cattlemen’s Association, the Ontario agriculture ministry and the Progressive Dairy Operators. It was administered by the University of Guelph.

The voluntary program gave dairy farmers management solutions and required them to meet certain conditions so they could access financial incentives for Johne’s herd tests and to remove high-titre cows, – cows that have a high probability of shedding large numbers of organisms in the environment. MacNaughton says a titre is a form of measurement. “A cow with a titre greater than one puts the rest of the herd at risk,” he explains.

Ann Godkin, an Ontario agriculture ministry veterinarian, says a titre is the amount of antibody measured by the ELISA test in the blood or milk of a cow. The amount is converted to a Johne’s score for reporting. In Ontario, a high-titre cow is defined as one that has a test score of 1.0 or higher on the blood or milk ELISA test.

New participants, who haven’t had their herds tested between January 2010 and this past January, can still get tested under the program from Feb. 1 to March 31. Previous participants must sign up on a waiting list to test and they can have their herds tested from April 1 to May 31. Details are available at: www.johnes.ca.

Godkin says there’s a fair bit of interest from farmers wanting to test their herds a second time. So far, 150 herds have been signed up. She’s also chair of the education and management assistance program’s working group.

MacNaughton says overall the program was very positive. But “if there’s any disappointment it’s that the level of participation is actually less than we had anticipated,” he says.

Sixty per cent of Ontario farmers participated but the industry had initially projected it would get 75 per cent. One of the main purposes of the project was to determine the prevalence of Johne’s in the provincial herd and now the industry knows it from only 60 per cent of the herd, he notes.

Godkin says among the positive parts of the program was the ability for farmers to work with veterinarians on their farms. The vets were involved because farmers have to complete an on-farm risk assessment and management document as part of the program. Farmers had to pay for that part of the program themselves.

Godkin says the prevalence of Johne’s in Ontario herds “is lower than we had originally speculated based on the first few studies that were done.” But the downside is “we don’t have all herds.”

As of October 2012, 1,828 herds and 124,032 cows have been tested. A total of 1,194 cows or 0.94 per cent tested positive, while 192 cows or 16 per cent of the cows testing positive had a titre of 1.0 or higher. Of all herds participating as of October, 134 or seven per cent had at least one high titre cow.
 
The updated numbers for the prevalence of Johne’s in Ontario will be available in March. BF