The federal approach to monitoring and containing bovine tuberculosis is changing just in time for the state of Colorado.
Cattlemen packed into the animal health and welfare committee meeting during the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association annual convention earlier this week to hear the latest on a case of four cows at a Colorado dairy confirmed positive for bovine TB. The outbreak was first discovered in a cow sold through the La Junta Livestock Auction.
A discovery of TB within a state has traditionally been cause for concern because it threatens the state’s TB-free status and leads to onerous disease testing requirements and trade restrictions. Once a state loses its TB free status, the process of upgrading its health status can take years.
New Mexico, along with Michigan, Minnesota and California, all had their TB status threatened in recent months when cases cropped up at dairies in those states.
But State Veterinarian Keith Roehr assured cattlemen that disease defense protocols are changing.
On April 15, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued a federal order eliminating movement restrictions and testing obligations for non-affected animals in states where TB has been found. It was described as an interim measure meant to minimize negative impacts of the existing TB program until those regulations can be studied and amended.
Many agree it is time to modify the cooperative eradication program began in 1917 to eliminate what was once the most prevalent infectious bovine disease. The economic toll of a broad-brush policy is high and indemnity costs can quickly rise into the millions.
“Why are they doing this? It’s a funding issue,” Roehr said. “They have started using reasoning rather than one dogmatic approach.”
The cow in Colorado that red-flagged the infected herd fortunately had an ear tag, which Roehr said allowed animal health officials to achieve traceback. Had it not been for that identifier, health officials would have had to quarantine 11 herds for further testing, he said.
TB surveillance is now being based on logical risk models instead of arbitrary state lines, Roehr said.
“There is very little co-mingling between the dairy and beef industries,” he added.
The emergence of TB in Colorado eclipsed ongoing concerns over trichomonisis, a parasitic venereal disease of cattle.
So far this year five Colorado counties have had positive trich cases: Conejos, Crowley, Prowers, Rio Blanco, and Saguache.
Tests insuring bulls are free of trich fueled additional discussion during the committee meeting.
CCA members crafted an amendment asking the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association to petition other state animal health agencies to accept trich pool testing by an accredited lab.
The procedure saves money by pooling five samples at a time. Jim Kennedy, director of the Rocky Ford Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, said his facility is currently the only one doing pool testing in the country, although it does contract out diagnostic services to other states that use pooling for in-state purposes.
Pool testing is the same method blood banks use to screen for HIV, Kennedy said.
Any animal disease lab has the equipment to do batch testing and is welcome to come to Rocky Ford for training, he said.
Many states have imposed stricter tests in reaction to rising concerns over trich. CCA members hope to deliver a message at the national level that pooled tests are scientifically valid and refusing to accept them inhibits trade between states and puts an undue economic burden on Colorado’s seedstock producers.
Ongoing animal ID push
Colorado State Veterinarian Keith Roehr is involved with the federal ag department’s effort to grapple with protecting the nation’s herd from a disease outbreak, serving as one of five state veterinarians on a federal working group drafting the framework of a proposed rule for an animal traceability plan expected to be published early next year.
“National animal ID is not totally dead,” he said. “We are still using components and parts of it as we continue moving ahead.”
The new, decentralized plan will only apply to livestock that cross state lines. Some form of traceability that meets “performance standards” shared between all states and tribes will be required, although use of federal premise IDs will not be mandatory, Roehr said. The two main forms of identification will likely be health certificates or an individual animal ID, he said.
The group plans to exempt “commuter cattle,” which are moved between states to properties of the same owner, as well as feeder cattle that travel in easily identified production lots.
The working group also wants to allow the use of low cost technology, such as metal clip tags, which run about 7 to 10 cents each.
Roehr said Colorado imports more feeder calves than any other state, and those animals co-mingle with native herds, increasing the risk for diseases to be introduced. “TB has been diagnosed in cattle as young as six months of age,” he added.
Only 28 percent of cattle slaughtered in the U.S. are officially identified. In addition, even when “back tags” are applied at the auction barn, they are only randomly retrieved and recorded at packing plants during processing, Roehr said. To trace a diseased animal to its source, packers as well as producers will have to do their part to maintain traceability, he said.
Roehr estimated that fully half of the ranchers in the West are receptive to a coordinated animal ID program, but Midwestern states like Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas are experiencing more resistance from producers.
Roehr also announced Ft. Collins would be the site of a foreign animal disease training workshop on July 29. Animal health officials are seeking producers interested in attending.
“We are preparing vets to be deployed in emergency situations. I think we should do the same thing with producers,” Roehr said.
