I got the cows blood tested for johnes for the first time last autumn and had 2 positives out of 45. The first one is a 10 year old cow with no daughters in my herd (I’ve only had my suckler herd for 4 years) so she will be kept separate and culled once she has weaned her calf.
The second one is a bit of a headache as she is one of my pedigree cows, she’s about 5 years old. I bought her (let’s call her cow A) and her heifer calf, along side her dam (cow B) and a number of others 18months ago.
Scenario:
Cow A - 5yo pedigree cow (still due to calve) tested positive for Johnes
Cow B - 10yo pedigree cow, Cow A’s dam, recently calved a heifer calf, tested negative for Johnes
Cow C - 2yo heifer just calved her first calf, daughter of Cow A. Tested negative for Johnes.
I have ambitions of developing the pedigree herd and obviously tackling johnes is pretty important so the safest thing to do is to cull A,B&C and not keep any of their calves, but this family is one of my better families so I wonder if there’s a way I can keep maybe Cow B and her calf. Is it likely A might have caught it as a young calf and not from her mother? I think A&C will both have to be for the chop. The farm they were all from originally were a member of PCHS and this is my first year of being in myself. I plan to speak to my vet about it at some point but they’re flat out lambing and calving just now so they probably have better things to do right now!
Thoughts??
Thanks in advance
The second one is a bit of a headache as she is one of my pedigree cows, she’s about 5 years old. I bought her (let’s call her cow A) and her heifer calf, along side her dam (cow B) and a number of others 18months ago.
Scenario:
Cow A - 5yo pedigree cow (still due to calve) tested positive for Johnes
Cow B - 10yo pedigree cow, Cow A’s dam, recently calved a heifer calf, tested negative for Johnes
Cow C - 2yo heifer just calved her first calf, daughter of Cow A. Tested negative for Johnes.
I have ambitions of developing the pedigree herd and obviously tackling johnes is pretty important so the safest thing to do is to cull A,B&C and not keep any of their calves, but this family is one of my better families so I wonder if there’s a way I can keep maybe Cow B and her calf. Is it likely A might have caught it as a young calf and not from her mother? I think A&C will both have to be for the chop. The farm they were all from originally were a member of PCHS and this is my first year of being in myself. I plan to speak to my vet about it at some point but they’re flat out lambing and calving just now so they probably have better things to do right now!
Thoughts??
Thanks in advance