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Tips for preventing onset or spread of livestock ills
 
By MICHELE F. MIHALJEVICH
Indiana Correspondent
 
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — In his role as a field veterinarian for the Indiana State Board of Animal Health (BOAH), Dr. Bruce Lamb is tasked with visiting farms where a potentially serious animal disease may have been found.
 
Lamb, a beef producer himself in Kosciusko County, takes samples from these farms and sends them off to be tested.

Results are generally available in less than 24 hours. “Until those tests come back, producers and veterinarians are on pins and needles,” he said. “If it’s something bad, it could be devastating.”

Fortunately for Indiana’s agricultural industry, diseases of major concern, or Foreign Animal Diseases (FADs), don’t happen often in the state. Last year’s bout with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was the most recent FAD in Indiana.

FADs are considered diseases of high consequence in terms of animal welfare and economic impact, said Dr. Kyle Shipman, BOAH’s director of avian health and field operations. They’re diseases not currently found in the United States. Included on the list of FADs are foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), bovine spongiform encephalopathy (or “mad cow” disease) and African swine fever.

“The big key player is FMD,” he explained. “It doesn’t have a human impact but it’s very fast-spreading. It could wipe out a county in days.” FMD last occurred in the United States in 1929. An outbreak of the disease in Europe in 2001 led to the slaughter of millions of cattle, hogs and sheep.

BOAH averages about one call a month regarding a potential disease. Most tests come back negative, Shipman said.
 
While the agency waits for test results, it will usually start a verbal quarantine in the area, said Denise Derrer, the agency’s public information director. “If we do get a positive, it sets off a cascade of response,” she noted. “We contact USDA due to international trade concerns. Protocols go into place, such as a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) radius quarantine area.

“We stop animal movement in and out. We don’t make quarantines for no reason. We don’t want to blindly write a quarantine. There has to be a science-based reason for having it.”

Producers must follow a prescribed procedure for cleaning up after a disease, Shipman said. For instance, a poultry operation infected with HPAI would undergo a cleaning and disinfecting process once the birds are removed.

“We call it virus elimination,” he said. “Any organic material is moved and disinfectant is applied on all surfaces. Before birds may be moved back in, we take samples from all the surfaces. After that is complete, they could get the ‘OK’ from BOAH and the USDA to bring birds back in. The birds will be sampled after spending some time in the barns.”

Once virus elimination is done, the barns must sit empty for 21 days before birds may be moved in.

“The current federal approach (for major diseases) is the stamp-out approach,” Shipman explained. “You find the disease, identify it and then eliminate the animals that have it. It’s like throwing water on a fire. You want control of it immediately. The longer the disease is in the animals, there’s an increased risk or chance of it moving.”

Indiana’s last FAD outbreak occurred in mid-January 2016 when H7N8 HPAI was found on 10 commercial turkey farms in Dubois County. More than 414,000 commercial turkeys and chickens (layers) were destroyed as a result of the disease, BOAH said.

The realization that a herd or flock must be destroyed isn’t easy for anyone, Derrer noted. “It’s stressful for our staff and stressful for the producers. We try to work with the producers as much as possible.”

Bovine tuberculosis (TB), found last year in Indiana, is a reportable disease but not a FAD, Shipman said. The disease was discovered in April and December 2016 in two herds in Franklin County. A whitetail deer on the first farm also tested positive.

More recently, a cow in Michigan that came from one of the Franklin County herds tested positive for TB, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development announced in late April.

Keeping animals safe

While each disease may have specific symptoms, Derrer listed five things that, if noticed, should lead producers to contact their veterinarians: sudden and unexplained deaths; unusual ticks or maggots; central nervous system disorders; unusual lesions or blistering; and illness affecting multiple animals.

“Know your animals and know what’s normal for them,” she said. “We encourage farmers to work with private practitioners. Slaughter surveillance is a really good tool for us. Inspectors will call a veterinarian if they see anything.”

Farmers should remember to keep a separation between the public and where animals are living, Derrer added. “If you could, you’d raise your animals in a bubble, but that’s not realistic. 
 
“If you bring animals back from a fair, or have new ones, keep them separated from the rest of the herd until you’re sure they didn’t pick up a respiratory disease. Also, think about feed truck drivers, and mail or package deliveries. They all go from farm to farm, barn to barn, and we don’t give them much thought.”

Producers should take steps to protect their operations from disease, Lamb said. “If you’re on another producer’s operation, change your shoes or boots when you return home. Disinfect your boots. Try not to wear the same clothes, overalls, boots or shoes that you wore to another farm,” he said.

“Isolate new animals for a time. These are common-sense things, but people often don’t think about them. Sometimes you have to remind producers to be a little more careful.” 
5/24/2017