Herd Health Scare

[OneFineAcre]

We have an annual herd health check where we have a vet take blood from all of our animals over 6 months old to test for CAE and Johne's disease. We tested 18 animals.
When we got the blood results we had one Jr. Doeling who test positive for Johne's
We were freaked out.
Our vet told us that there were a number of reasons why an animal could produce a false positives for Johne's and that we should have a second test. The first test is an "immune responese" test and a number of things could cause a false positive.
So a more advance test is required.

Thank goodness, the second more definitive test was negative.

I am sharing this on the forum for a couple of reasons. Know who you purchase your aninmals from. Second, find a veterinarian who knows ruminants.

 

[Pearce Pastures]

Scary. :/

We just got "Johnes" news about a community farm, one that lends out goats and other farm animals to 4H kids who do not have a place to raise their own animals. Their goats tested positive for Johnes and were all put down. I am SO SO SO glad that when they contacted us for buck service/ trading last year, we declined (they didn't do any testing at that time and I was pretty leery---good thing!)

 

[Southern by choice]

We went through something similar.
We test for CAE and Johne's also.
One of our does had tested "susp"... not pos or neg. . After an extensive time speaking with the virologist at the lab, we were able to get more info. The test was "inconclusive". I certainly would have appreciated the term "susp" explained better in the paperwork.
We too were taken aback at first because our animals originated from clean herds, we do not show, and there are no animals coming in and no possible form of exposure.

The one doe that had "inconclusive" was pregnant at the time.

Factors that can cause inconclusive results as well as false positives can be pregnancy, recent vaccines and/or anti-biotics.

The virologist also explained the many levels of testing that an actual pos result could go through.

I can say that I wish that the Vet would have told me there were factors that could give inaccurate results due to factors ABC etc. It would have certainly been less stressful. Thankfully our lab is very good with answering questions.
For most people that would mean another farm call from the vet and a blood draw etc. all for a $1.50 test. It pays to know how to draw your own blood!

Many have heard of CAE and CL but not many know about Johnes. Johnes is basically a wasting disease.

@ Pearce- that is awful! Hopefully they did some retesting to confirm if they were indeed all pos.

 

[OneFineAcre]

Oh we were seriously stressed out. Even though after speaking with our vet we knew in our head that it was likely a false positive, in our hearts we were so worried. Her dam was negative and her twin sister was negative so it was seriously unlikely that she was truly positive.

To add to the stress we got the first results on a Friday, I found out about 10pm. We had people visiting the farm the next day who were interested in buying one of Coleus's bucklings. My wife and I immediately said to ourselves that we would not sell them an animal until we had her re-tested and could say we had a healthy herd.

But we were going to show them how to milk and were going to give them some cheese. The young lady was so excited. She has 3 dry does. I was like thinking " maybe they will want to think about the buckling".

Well the visit went really well and they wanted him but we had to tell them that we could not sell him to them yet and we told them why. I was so devasted because I thought they were upset.
When she sent me an email thanking us for the cheese and the quart of milk we gave them and the time we spent with them I told her how upset I was about the situation.

She really appreciated our honesty and she is going to get the buckling this weekend.

That's what I meant about "know who you are purchasing your animals from".

 

[OneFineAcre]

I received a PM from another forum member asking me more about the less accurate test, and the more definitive test.

The less accurate test is an ELISA. It measures auto immune response. That is why things like pregnancy, a fever, or any other type of infection or thing going on with the animal can cause a false positive.

The more definitive test is called and "acid fast stain". Results should say "no acid fast bacteria observed".

Our vet also told us that among the population of tested animals only about 5% of goats are truly positive for Johnnes.

I hope this helps.