Testing sheep for OPP, Johnes and CL

So, I decided I wanted to have a baseline with my very small hobby farm flock of sheep with respect to OPP (ovine progressive pneumonia), Johnes, and CL (Caseous Lymphadenitis).

I called our vets to find out if they could get a cost at the Calgary Lab for these tests.

The Washington State University does this as a biosecurity screen:

Caprine/Ovine Biosecurity Screen for 22.50 per animal (14.70 if I lived in Washington)
-Small Ruminant Lentivirus (CAE/OPP) (ELISA)
-CL (SHI)
-Johne's (ELISA)

And there are US federal subsidies even a the 14.70 an animal. And for me, there is an additional 35 dollar processing fee for the entire flock's samples because I'm out of state.

Guess, just guess what the Calgary lab will charge PER ANIMAL -- give up.



Three-hundred and twenty dollars - yup $320.00 per animal.

Now I know it's a private lab and the other is a University but come on, 14 times the cost?

I feel a letter coming on to the Agriculture Minister.

For all their yapping about food safety and producing quality food, they sure don't make it easy. OR about how come no one gets into producing goats and lamb as a livelihood. Heck, the 320 dollars to test costs more than most sheep.

I'm so disgusted.

Ok, so we had the vet come out and draw samples and send them, overnight guaranteed delivery.

Washington State got them a week after they were sent (Canada Post because the regular courier for the vet's wouldn't do it).

So why do I pay for guaranteed overnight service, and when asked, it was, "well we can't promise that"

So I have no idea now if the samples are viable. The university is still processing them, but it just makes me so cranky. Why advertise guaranteed overnight, they knew exactly what was in the parcel and then not make it?

Grrrr.

What was the fee to have the sheep tested? I too have a small flock and would to have them tested.

HOLY SHEEP DIP!!!! Is that ever expensive! HOw rediculous!

Are these DNA tests? Can you breed two tested clear sheep and guarantee that the offspring are clear? Do you need to test the whole fock, or do people tend to sample a few?
I know nothing about this and would love to learn more.

HighCountry wrote:What was the fee to have the sheep tested? I too have a small flock and would to have them tested.

The cost is 22.50 per sheep for all three blood tests.
There is an overall processing fee of 35 dollars too.

Our vets had to draw the blood because I don't know how but they kindly only charged me time and not by the animal.

I have 19 sheep so it was 427 for the all the tests on all animals; that is if Canada Post didn't screw it up and deliver the samples so late they can't be used.

Once the animals are tested free from Johne's and OPP, they are free and we don't need to test those animals again.

CL is more of a management issue as they exist everywhere and can be picked up again. BUT if you eventually get to a clean herd with CL by keeping infected animals separate, at least it would highly unlikely they would pick it up -- tesnds to be from milk or blood transmission.

Once the herd is tested clean, you keep it closed or bring in animals and keep them separate until tested or use AI or embryo transplants rather than other animals. IF you vaccinate for CL those animals would always test positive as they have antibodies for that.

Link to Washington State - and you have to scroll way down the page to "Caprine/Ovine Biosecurity Screen"

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Arcticsun wrote:HOLY SHEEP DIP!!!! Is that ever expensive! HOw ridiculous!

Are these DNA tests? Can you breed two tested clear sheep and guarantee that the offspring are clear? Do you need to test the whole fock, or do people tend to sample a few?
I know nothing about this and would love to learn more.

These are blood tests - Washington State calls these three bio-security screen.

In Canada I doubt anyone is testing with a lab here as for us, the bill would have been over $6,000 not including the vet drawing blood. If you had a even a reasonable sized flock, like 100, it would cost you $32,000.. stupid eh?

On Washington State's Vet school there are lots of links to these diseases

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Johnes exists in lots of animals, most notably, dairy cows. The paper we just got from our vets from a conference they were at last month, estimates that 90% of US dairies are infected with Johnes. This was also detected in pasteurized milk - you know from the store. The article I think said they found 3% of pasteurized milk had Johnes. Virulent little buggers. Johnes can affect humans -

"A separate subspecies of Mycobacterium avium called Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis is the bacterial cause of Johnes Disease in cattle and sheep. This subspecies has been implicated as a possible cause of Crohn's disease in humans however to date extensive research has not been able to conclusively demonstrate this."

We had our dairy cow tested for Johnes here - she came back clear.

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Here in Ontario we have a program for testing for johnes in dairy cows. They test the cows for it with the milk samples when we test how much our cows milk. If we follow all their rules they will fully reimburse for the cost of testing. They have tested 49% of all herds so far and found that 25% of the herds had at least one positive cow, a much smaller number then the US data! Overall only 0.9% of all cows were positive. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

If your animal tests negative does not mean it will stay negative all its live it can still get infected if you have others at your place that are positive.

Normally would not comment here but I have never paid $500.00 per bird testing for export to the U.S. Even when I lived in Alberta, It is costly yes but not that much. Quoting a price like that just scares people form investigating the possiblity of import, export.

Sorry Cathy not on topic sorry

Heather

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Higgins ... yes, I understand there is potential. But IF there is a closed flock, the chances of OPP or Johnes is relatively small.

We discussed this with our vets. I will read your links, thank you for them.

If your animal tests negative does not mean it will stay negative all its live it can still get infected if you have others at your place that are positive.

Yes, that is why we are testing the entire flock. I didn't mean to say if an animal tests negative it never will get it. My information was we don't need to test again for those JOhnes and OPP as the likelihood is small they would catch it from just being here. We intend to keep a closed flock and all new animals tested before being out of quarantine. Sorry if my post wasn't very clear.

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viczoe wrote:Normally would not comment here but I have never paid $500.00 per bird testing for export to the U.S. Even when I lived in Alberta, It is costly yes but not that much. Quoting a price like that just scares people form investigating the possiblity of import, export.

Sorry Cathy not on topic sorry

Heather

No issues for me!

How did you make out with your testing?

I'm curious too as I am getting sheep soon.

Did you try the
Ministry of Agriculture
Animal Health Centre
1767 Angus Campbell Road
Abbotsford BC V3G 2M3
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(For tests not listed or for questions regarding Laboratory fees, please contact the AHC (604-556-3003 or B.C. toll free 1-800-661-9903)

This is were my vet sent the blood samples from my goats
to test of CAE.

Wow! I'm loving all this info. I have a heifer that I am hoping will have a calf this year. I was planning to milk her, so was wondering about tests.

So... we had the screen run that did Johnes, CL and OPP.

No OPP for anyone, and wasn't expecting any, we (western Canada) don't have an OPP issue.

Two of the ewes came back with CL positive, BUT they were vaccinated for CL from the folks I got them from so was expecting that.

One of our rams came back with a positive for Johnes. The vet from the university said, it can be a false positive (in particular if they have been vaccinated for CL and others)  and to do a fecal test, which was more accurate (if they are shedding). That came back negative The vet from the University of Washington is amazing. told us to call him directly anytime we had questions, how to go about doing future screens and what to watch for. He was just awesome.

We will test the ram again in the fall,  and test for Johnes again (fecal). If he comes back negative, we plan to test in another 6 months. The only time the other animals can pick it up is if they are shedding and that comes in feces. For right now he is isolated, just in case.  

As we are vaccinating for CL, not much point in testing for it because they will most likely all come back positive even though they aren't 'infected'. That was  a trade off for vaccinating, even though the vaccinations are considered only 50 percent effective.

We won't have another animal on the place without getting them tested. When I had goats I trusted the processes used by others (no testing but pasturizing milk and bottle feeding babies) and I ended up with goats that had CAE.

The Johnes in particular is for me is a big deal. The CL at least you can mitigate some of the risk by watching for abscesses and then keeping those animals away from everyone else until the boo boo is cleaned up. Not such a big deal.

I'm really glad we tested. I have much better notion of the baseline I'm starting with.
Oh, for Johnes, it won't show up in  young animals, I think the earliest detection is around 3 years of age, but I would have to go back and check (at least in the cows).

I'm so glad your specimens weren't compromised by the shipping. 

ME TOO!

Turns out Canada Post was the issue. We are just using UPS now, much easier!