OPA is it possible to eradicate it from.the flock?

[hubbahubba]

Although we havnt bought any females for a good number of years we have OPA.
First noticed at lambing time I had one gimmer showing pneumonia signs. She had two lambs but wasn't able.to nurse them and I foolishly left her in a nursery for a few weeks. Then she started to run of the nostrils and die. PM confirmed OPA. Maybe came in with a tup but none have ever showed any signs.

Since then we have lost a few this year, one last week which has abscesses on her lungs and vets thought start of opa. I've also culled 4 or 5 ewes of various ages to various amounts of values. Let's say 10 in total died or culled with symptoms out 750 breeding flock.

I don't think we are bad enough to be thinking about scanning as it's obviously not very reliable either. I'm going to keep on culling and breathing strangely or slow. I've a field of 40 leaner ewes, none are that bad just not as good as I'd like. I'm reluctant to feed them just incase it spreads opa if any even have it so just put them onto better grass to observe

Million doller question I guess. Will it continue to get worse and worse or will I be able to eradicate it? Going to start buying all tups from a selected few breeders now too.

 

[sheepwise]

Listen to Cammy's Fed by Farmers podcast this week where he has vet out scanning his mules for OPA. Very interesting, think there is more about than many admit to. My vet says MV becoming a worry too.

 

[Sharpy]

I'm not a sheep guy, but I have a friend who had a problem with opa (in blackies), losses got so bad he was keeping all.ewe lambs as replacements and buying some in!
He culled the lot and changed breeds.
Do not mess about.........

 

[Tim W]

Although we havnt bought any females for a good number of years we have OPA.
First noticed at lambing time I had one gimmer showing pneumonia signs. She had two lambs but wasn't able.to nurse them and I foolishly left her in a nursery for a few weeks. Then she started to run of the nostrils and die. PM confirmed OPA. Maybe came in with a tup but none have ever showed any signs.

Since then we have lost a few this year, one last week which has abscesses on her lungs and vets thought start of opa. I've also culled 4 or 5 ewes of various ages to various amounts of values. Let's say 10 in total died or culled with symptoms out 750 breeding flock.

I don't think we are bad enough to be thinking about scanning as it's obviously not very reliable either. I'm going to keep on culling and breathing strangely or slow. I've a field of 40 leaner ewes, none are that bad just not as good as I'd like. I'm reluctant to feed them just incase it spreads opa if any even have it so just put them onto better grass to observe

Million doller question I guess. Will it continue to get worse and worse or will I be able to eradicate it? Going to start buying all tups from a selected few breeders now too.

It will get worse if you don't do anything about it

Scanning is just about the only tool we have, you need a decent operator & be prepared to cull relentlessly. I think they would recommend doing it at 6 monthly intervals to start with
There's a good NI case study available to read

We scan as part of our proactive disease screening on an annual basis....I think doing 750 ewes would take 1.5 days .. maybe @ £700? depending on vets?

Housing is the number 1 route of infection ( maybe mother/ lamb too?)
I think Moredun have a good fact sheet

 

[ritchiekirkland]

I help out at a farm that has scanned for OPA for a number of years ( perhaps 8)in there blackie flock
They will have about 1000 sheep scanned every year including hoggs . Hoggs scanned going to wintering and coming back .
Rams all scanned on arrival.
They have managed to get it down this year that they didn’t have any to cull .
Im not saying it’s eradicated but there wasn’t any showing it bad enough when scanned .
They have however had it confirmed in a milk lamb before and they believe it could be possible a lamb to be born with it
I think once you know you have it , you get an eye for the ones with it and can often pick them before the vet scans them .
We run cross ewes in a closed flock but I do intend to get a pm done on the next one that dies from pneumonia type symptoms .
Stopped using Heptavac and wondered if it could be that but not so sure .

 

[Aspiring Peasants]

It appeared here 5 years ago, usually 3 to 4 crop ewes. Never huge losses but could have done without it. We were keeping mostly homebred replacements but also buying some in. Noticed it was more prevalent in the homebred replacements so they must pick it up from their mothers.

Decided to buy more replacements and keep them separate, seems to have worked because so far there haven’t been any cases in them and the older ewes are getting culled out now anyway, so fewer cases with them. Vet told me if you can keep breeding sheep in age groups it’s easier to control things like this. If it starts coming back then I know I have one group of sheep affected and not all. It’s easier for me to do this because I have 4 different sites.

 

[debe]

We found scanning only found the ones you would pick out anyhow. It's a horrible disease, and though mortality rates aren't huge the underlying losses are a lot greater.

 

[hubbahubba]

Listened to the podcast today. As we don't buy in and keep our own replacements it will maybe be an idea to track the ewe lambs parents. Never relised it can spread in the colostrum/milk. Our first one and a few later have been gimmers which according to the podcast are too early to scan.

It's also surprising how many people I've mentioned my trouble to and they have said yes we have had one or two but never came to much....

 

[ringi]

It's also surprising how many people I've mentioned my trouble to and they have said yes we have had one or two but never came to much....

If a flock cull all ewes that are in a low condition without investigating why the ewes are not doing well, then they will cull out many ewes with OPA without knowing the ewes have OPA.

If they ioslate ewes that are doing poorly before lambing, don't let these ewes mix with any other sheep and keep none of their lambs as replacement then many Iceberg Diseases will have lower transmission in the flock.

I wonder if FEC of ewes 2 weeks before lambing and ioslating/culling the ewes with significantly higher FEC would result in culling out more Iceberg Diseases?

Never relised it can spread in the colostrum/milk.

Don't know if this been proven or if it is just the lamb being close to the mother increasing transmission risk.

Vet told me if you can keep breeding sheep in age groups it’s easier to control things like this.

With most (maybe all) Iceberg Diseases it is uncommon for virus load to be high enough to get much transmission until a few years after infection. So taking replacement from the youngest ewes and keeping the youngest ewes seperate would tend to reduce transmission risks.

But you then can't take replacements from the ewes that been problem free for longest.