Neospora

[Scholsey]

Have had what has turned out to be a neospora outbreak, not sure on source but 20% of 170 adult cows have aborted most of which in a 3 week period and milk testing at drying off looks like another 50%+ is infected, how have people got on managing a large neospora outbreak out of a herd?

 

[rusty]

About 10 years ago we thought we were having more abortions than we should so tested the whole herd. About 45% showed positive.
Your problem is with the number you have you can’t just serve them all to beef initially. We test all cows just before dry off with a blood test. We have also tried doing it through individual milk samples but were not very confident of the results , they seemed to be a lot more variable than the blood test results. We swapped to using Limousin as the beef sire as we were told anecdotally they are less likely to abort if in calf to the Lim and our experience would support this.
We are now in a much better place but still have too many R2’s that loose their calf at 5-6 months. I would aim to rear an extra 10-20% replacements to initially cover those that abort. We never re serve anything that has aborted, they are straight on the cull list.

 

[M-J-G]

About 10 years ago we thought we were having more abortions than we should so tested the whole herd. About 45% showed positive.
Your problem is with the number you have you can’t just serve them all to beef initially. We test all cows just before dry off with a blood test. We have also tried doing it through individual milk samples but were not very confident of the results , they seemed to be a lot more variable than the blood test results. We swapped to using Limousin as the beef sire as we were told anecdotally they are less likely to abort if in calf to the Lim and our experience would support this.
We are now in a much better place but still have too many R2’s that loose their calf at 5-6 months. I would aim to rear an extra 10-20% replacements to initially cover those that abort. We never re serve anything that has aborted, they are straight on the cull list.

Are you only not serving the ones that abort?
Or are you not serving all positives?

 

[Princess Pooper]

Sorry to hear this, it is an absolute bummer. We dealt with quite a large issue about 20 years ago, about 20% turned out to be infected, eliminated it and have what is hopefully a smaller one that has just reared its head again with one abortion testing positive and a few more barren heifers sold in the summer that might have aborted and we missed it. Footpaths on the farm.

In the previous outbreak , we tested everything and we did breed positives to beef. Fortunately even then we were using sexed semen even back in those days so the dairy calves that we did breed were nearly all heifers. We do not run a tight block so depending when they were aborted, we did breed some again (to beef) if they had slipped quite early and milked an extended lactation, not a challenge for Holsteins.

Don't forget that if this issue has been on farm for a few year or so then some of your youngstock may be infected - not all infected cows abort and some live calves can be PI's just like with BVD.

The protozoan eggs can survive a year on grass, so if possible change fields if you are able to work out where they picked it up. Good luck.

 

[rusty]

Are you only not serving the ones that abort?
Or are you not serving all positives?

We would serve a positive to beef although when we first found out we had so much we had to serve some to dairy. Sexed semen is a big help in being able to target dairy semen.

 

[M-J-G]

We would serve a positive to beef although when we first found out we had so much we had to serve some to dairy. Sexed semen is a big help in being able to target dairy semen.

I take it you're just wanting to control it as opposed to getting clear of it.

 

[rusty]

I take it you're just wanting to control it as opposed to getting clear of it.

We are now at a stage where we could contemplate eradication but one third of our fields have well used foot paths in them so it’s very difficult to control external influences (dog sh!t!) . We currently don’t look for Neospora in our bulling heifers and this is probably where most of our transmission is coming from .

 

[Devon lad]

We’ve had it creeping in here, milk test all cows before breeding. Don’t serve any heifers to dairy when there dam has tested positive.
All Nic cows blood tested

 

[M-J-G]

Sorry to hear this, it is an absolute bummer. We dealt with quite a large issue about 20 years ago, about 20% turned out to be infected, eliminated it and have what is hopefully a smaller one that has just reared its head again with one abortion testing positive and a few more barren heifers sold in the summer that might have aborted and we missed it. Footpaths on the farm.

In the previous outbreak , we tested everything and we did breed positives to beef. Fortunately even then we were using sexed semen even back in those days so the dairy calves that we did breed were nearly all heifers. We do not run a tight block so depending when they were aborted, we did breed some again (to beef) if they had slipped quite early and milked an extended lactation, not a challenge for Holsteins.

Don't forget that if this issue has been on farm for a few year or so then some of your youngstock may be infected - not all infected cows abort and some live calves can be PI's just like with BVD.

The protozoan eggs can survive a year on grass, so if possible change fields if you are able to work out where they picked it up. Good luck.

A friend had an issue with it 5 or 6 years ago, it had been grumbling for quite a few years before that.

He tested every female on the farm that was of breeding potential for two years and culled all positives and collected their placentas and then testing all breeding heifers for a further 2 years.

False negatives are quite a big problem, as you've mentioned a lot of cows don't abort and a lot give birth to positive progeny, almost all of his cases were from the same cow families.

From what I recall one of his positive cows had 4 positive daughters in the herd, yet some positive cows had negative daughters, these were culled anyway.

He thought it all came from bought in heifer that he said only carried 2 calves out of 5 to full term, it was flaired up to him by someone who bought breeding heifers from him and tested them pre bulling.

 

[Conrod96]

Dad had this happen him 15 years ago, 90 aborted in 3 weeks came from fox’s dunging in front of the silage clamp face and ending up in the TMR.
Just had to wether the storm if they’d any sort of bag we milked as best we could bred what we could to dairy and rest to beef.
Kept the beef animals to keep stock numbers up and tried to breed through it bought in some heifers but they didn’t make it thru the 1st lactation but we’d IBR setting in at that stage too

 

[bar718]

Nearly everyone has mentioned the dreaded footpaths and dog walkers but no one has mentioned the farm dog. They can be even worse at spreading this disease especially when younger. Also the local hunt kennels who collect dead stock and use as feed for the dogs are also a source.
We used to be bad and have a lot of abortions until we lost a few acres of land that we rented which was on the village loop for the morning dog exercise walk. Once we lost that land everything calmed down but we always had spikes whenever we got a young pup when we had that land even though we kept up to worming the pup was due to them eating whatever they find and not bothering where they crap.

 

[Scholsey]

About 10 years ago we thought we were having more abortions than we should so tested the whole herd. About 45% showed positive.
Your problem is with the number you have you can’t just serve them all to beef initially. We test all cows just before dry off with a blood test. We have also tried doing it through individual milk samples but were not very confident of the results , they seemed to be a lot more variable than the blood test results. We swapped to using Limousin as the beef sire as we were told anecdotally they are less likely to abort if in calf to the Lim and our experience would support this.
We are now in a much better place but still have too many R2’s that loose their calf at 5-6 months. I would aim to rear an extra 10-20% replacements to initially cover those that abort. We never re serve anything that has aborted, they are straight on the cull list.

what % of abortion do you think you had in the positives as you carried on milking them?

had a really smart 1 lactation heifer, 10,000 litres 305, dried her off, her milk test came back positive 1 day after we dried her off but all seemed ok, moved her into the close up yard once 4 weeks pre calving and had that horrible brown cleansing hanging out, checked her and had a mummified calf no more than 30cm long in her, preg presumably died back when we had the abortion storm but didn’t spit it out. Does anyone use the NMR milk preg testing thing? Wondering about doing it to avoid the above.

 

[Sleepeasy]

Where do non farm dogs pick it up from though? Dogs have to eat positive placenta to then be able to spread it round in their sh!t.
farm dogs worse than non farm dogs

 

[Will Blackburn]

One reason we don’t have a dog.

 

[organicguy]

Vets say often an issue when litter of pups on farm. Dogs quickly build immunity , stop shedding so it needs naive dogs to complete the cycle.
Sh1t into the tmr is the best way to spread anything.

 

[Princess Pooper]

Yes, farm dogs often key and I do have my suspicions about brother in law's collie bought 2 years ago and we also occasionally get neighbour's collie wandering from their yard 30 m away into our loose yards.

As to where non-farm dogs pick it up, you can't always find the foetus or cleansings from an abortion in a field so non-farm dogs can pick it up from there or a neighbour's field or the field they walked in when they went away for the weekend.....

 

[Henarar]

Dad had this happen him 15 years ago, 90 aborted in 3 weeks came from fox’s dunging in front of the silage clamp face and ending up in the TMR.

Was it proved that it came from the fox dung ?
One of our vets said it had not been proved that fox's spread it.

 

[Scholsey]

Was it proved that it came from the fox dung ?
One of our vets said it had not been proved that fox's spread it.

Our vets said foxes can’t carry it, only coyotes and I pretty sure we don’t have any of them, fox hounds on the otherhand……

 

[Conrod96]

Well we’d no dogs about at the time so vet was pretty sure it was foxes as the silo face was littered with dung every morning

 

[M-J-G]

Where do non farm dogs pick it up from though? Dogs have to eat positive placenta to then be able to spread it round in their sh!t.
farm dogs worse than non farm dogs

I always say that, dogs are only a host, they need infected tissue to be a risk.