New Edition of Veterinarian Johne's Disease Handbooks Available

Beef producers and their veterinarians who want to help prevent or control Johne's disease in their herds often ask where they should start with the process. The answer: Begin by conducting an on-farm risk assessment, then develop and follow a management plan specific to a farm or ranch.

Two recently updated handbooks — Handbook for Veterinarians and Beef Producers and How to do Risk Assessments and Develop Management Plans for Johne's Disease — are available for beef producers and their veterinarians who are serious about addressing Johne's disease and stopping the financial drain of this devastating disease. The handbooks, now in their fourth editions, reflect the USDA's updated Program Standards for the Voluntary Bovine Johne's Disease Control Program and are significantly more user-friendly.

"The team in charge of developing the 2011 edition of the handbooks brainstormed long and hard to develop easy-to-comprehend and easy-to-complete information and forms, and I think the handbooks are homeruns," states Elisabeth Patton, chairman of the U.S. Animal Health Association (USAHA) Johne's Disease Committee.

Patton explains that the handbooks are for use by veterinarians with beef clients to improve biosecurity and reduce pathogens, particularly Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis (MAP), the bacteria known to cause Johne's disease. The How to do Risk Assessments and Develop Management Plans handbook is a companion piece to the other.

"Together the handbooks are a veterinarian's manual to [help] beef producers reduce or prevent Johne's disease in their herds," Patton adds. "That said, many of the management practices developed to address Johne's disease should help reduce the presence of other pathogens, as well."

The Handbook for Veterinarians and Beef Producers has just eight pages: one page for recording "current herd health status and concerns" and six pages dedicated to risk assessment and management recommendations related to calving area, nursing calves, weaned heifers and bulls, bred heifers and yearling bulls, cows and bulls, and replacements and additions.

The 23-page How to do Risk Assessments and Develop Management Plans for Johne's Disease goes more in depth and covers seven key steps to help reduce or prevent Johne's disease:

1. Step 1 — Collect information on current herd health status and production;
2. Step 2 — Collect history, owner goals and biosecurity data and estimate Johne's disease prevalence;
3. Step 3 — Assess risks for transmitting Johne's disease among specific animal groups, with descriptive guidelines for scoring risk factors for dairy herds or beef herds;
4. Step 4 — Consider Johne's disease management efforts that will benefit and integrate with other health and performance issues;
5. Step 5 — Select critical management practices to include in the management plan;
6. Step 6 — Build the elements of a testing strategy; and
7. Step 7 — Do a reality check. Will the plan work? Plan to monitor it.

The Fourth Edition 2011 of the handbooks was developed by the National Johne's Disease Education Initiative and approved for distribution by the Johne's Disease Committee of the USAHA, the National Johne's Working Group and the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Veterinary Services (VS).

PDFs of the beef veterinarian handbooks and the How to do Risk Assessments and Develop Management Plans for Johne's Disease are online at www.johnesdisease.org. Please contact your State Designated Johne's Disease Coordinator for specific information related to your state.

[Click here to go to the top of the page.]