2 Vetorapid by Innovativefarmers (Farm Innovation)

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2 Farm Innovation
Vetorapid by Innovativefarmers
in Significant Impact Group(s): Pathogen management \ Managing sick animals

Species targeted: Dairy;
Age: Adult;
Summary: Company ‘Innovativefarmers’ with innovation ‘Vetorapid: Improving The Targeting Of Mastitis Treatments’
The field lab aims to demonstrate that following appropriate training, farmers are capable of determining the causative agent of mild or moderate clinical mastitis (Grades 1 or 2 only) using the VetorapidTM system and delivering selective treatment based on the results.
Providing dairy farmers with a consistent procedure for typing bacteria rapidly on-farm has the potential to reduce the use of antimicrobials in lactating cows by up to 50%. The solution to this could be on-farm tests which give results within 24 hours.
The use of a selective treatment approach will: reduce the overall usage of antibiotics on the farms.
The results show that there are significant cost savings to be made when using this technique which identifies types of bacteria in cattle. The expected saving in antibiotic treatments using the culture kit was about 24%.

2 Farm Innovation – Vetorapid by Innovativefarmers
Where to find the original material: (in English)
https://www.innovativefarmers.org/field-lab?id=ac9809d7-6667-e511-80c5-005056ad0bd4;
Country: UK

 

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Health Benefits of Monitoring Rumination

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It is now common for neckcollars and eartags to measure rumination, as well as activity, in automatic heat detection systems. However there is a greater benefit in the use of rumination data as an early warning health alert. Not only are cows monitored 24 hours a day and alerts sent to the stockman when a problem arises – allowing time to be focused on animals that need attention – but a reduction in rumination rate is an earlier symptom than the more obvious signs of sickness that are traditionally seen. This early diagnosis leads to a wider range of potential treatments, many curative averting the need of antibiotic use, making the symptoms less severe and allowing a much quicker recovery.

For example, at the South West Dairy Development Centre, the Smartbow eartag identified reduced rumination at 3 days post calving, prompting a vet diagnosis of a dilated abomasum – the first stage of a DA. Appropriate treatment avoided the need for an operation – and the corresponding antibiotic use – and resulted in a quickly recovered cow.

Similarly monitoring rumination can identify early stages of ketosis, acidosis, mastitis and even the time of calving. Monitoring rumination at a herd/ group can identify Sub Acute Ruminal Acidosis, suboptimal dry cow transition diets, and even poor forage quality.

Remotely monitoring rumination rate can also indicate if a treatment has been successful. Two technologies – Cow Manager and SmaXtec (a rumen bolus) also include temperature in the health alert algorithm.

Monitoring rumination can save time, improve animal health, reduce stress, improve treatment outcomes, increase production and reduce antibiotic use.

Early Mastitis Detection in Robotic Milkers Reduces Antibiotic Use

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It is usual to identify mastitis on farm by observing clots, or a raised temperature and hard quarter. Often somatic cellcounts are taken, but this is often historic information after laboratory analysis , and the data is an average of all 4 quarters of the cow.

Robotic milkers, such as the GEA monobox used at the SW dairy Development Centre, measure milk conductivity, temperature and colour from each quarter. (There is now also an option to install quarter somatic cellcount detection). Data is collected at each milking, and is analysed by comparing previous data from the same cow, alerting when there is a significant change in a specific quarter. This allows a much earlier diagnosis af mastitis, which gives allows for non antibiotic treatments – such as the application of udder linament, and increasing the frequency of milking – to effect a self-cure. If, in extreme cases, it is decided that the best course of action is to use intramammery antibiotics, the earlier detection can lead to higher cure rates.

This system is much more accurate as it takes quarter information, and algorithms compare to results from the individual cow, rather than generic averages. The real-time nature of the data means diagnosis is earlier which in turn leads to a reduction in antibiotic use, both from reducing the number of cows that need antibiotisc, and having better cure rates in those that do. There is also a finacial benefit with more milk per cow being sold off farm ( less “treated” milk, and less milk reduction due to sick cows)

Disease management on a dairy farm: Testing, Vaccinating, Culling, and Keeping a Closed Herd

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Managing and preventing disease on a dairy farm is a continuous effort. A UK farmer shares his key strategies for optimizing his herd’s health in this video Optimising herd health – Managing disease  

The first key measure is to run a closed herd – no cattle are brought onto the farm, not even bulls. This is even more important in this part of England due to endemic Bovine Tuberculosis (TB). Using farm software, the farmer can mark out cows that have had an Inconclusive Result (IR) for TB and ensure they are not bred from and do not stay on the farm long, potentially spreading disease.  

Leptospirosis – a zoonotic disease that can infect humans – has also been an issue in the past so all adult cows and heifers are vaccinated for this every February before turnout. Another infectious disease that affects many dairy farms in Europe is Bovine Viral Diarrhoea virus (BVD). After 2 years of BVD testing calves through the Tag and Test system and blood testing heifers, this farm is now on the national BVD eradication scheme and registered as free from BVD but continuously monitoring via bulk milk tank tests.  They do not vaccinate against BVD currently, but care is taken to keep a barrier between their cattle and neighboring cattle due to BVD outbreaks on neighboring farms. The final disease that this farmer is acting upon is Johnes. After a recent clinical case (tip of the iceberg!), this farm has been more vigilant to Johnes and test the whole herd twice yearly. Affected cows are culled out but are often the poor performing animals anyway showing more lameness, high cell counts or poor fertility. 

WEBINAR: How can the management of clinical and subclinical mastitis be supported by sensor systems?

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An exciting line-up of speakers hosted online by IDF (https://www.fil-idf.org/) on 14th October 2020:

  • Detection of severe clinical mastitis DR ILKA KLAAS, DELAVAL INTERNATIONAL AB, DENMARK
  • Detection of mild/moderate mastitis DR GUNNAR DALEN, TINE DAIRIES SA, NORWAY
  • Detection to support dry off decisions PROF. DAVID KELTON, UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH, CANADA & DR ALFONSO
    ZECCONI, UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO, ITALY
  • Detection of herd level mastitis problems DR HONIG HEN, VETERINARY SERVICE, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE,
    ISRAEL
  • Conclusions: Thinking outside the box: Novel ways to utilize sensor data to improve mastitis management PROF. HENK HOGEVEEN, WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY, NETHERLANDS
  • Questions and Answers on Zoom chat

Watch the webinar here:

 

Download the presentation here

Paratuberculosis control requires a national plan

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Managing Sick Animals > Diagnostics > Resource > Paratuberculosis control requires a national plan

 

Paratuberculosis is a chronic, contagious bacterial disease (caused by Mycobacterium avium subsp. Paratuberculosis (MAP)) of the intestinal tract which primarily affects sheep and cattle, goats, and other ruminant species. There is no known treatment for the disease. Control involves good sanitation and management practices including screening tests for new animals to identify and eliminate infected animals and ongoing surveillance of adult animals.

Implementation of regional/national control programmes are successful. They are related to growing industry concerns about the zoonotic potential of MAP, the desire to be proactive in control at both the farmer and processor levels, and/or to meet trade requirements. The interest among processors serves to take a voluntary control and/or status programme and make it mandatory for farmers.

The primary tools used for control across countries range widely, from testing options, on-farm risk assessments, incentive programmes, education and awareness campaigns and vaccination. Successful countries recommend some form of testing; faecal culture or PCR of environmental samples, bulk tank milk ELISA tests, or the use of similar methods at the cow-level. More recent developments and variations exist in the use of a combination of tests (e.g. ELISA followed by direct faecal PCR for confirmation) and/or cut-off values (e.g. test label vs. cut-off for high shedding animals). Many nations supplement these testing schemes with the recommendation to complete a herd-level risk assessment, which can be either specific to the disease or part of general biosecurity risk assessments.

Udder health when drying off and at herd level supported by sensor systems

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Sensor systems currently are used to identify cows with signs of clinical mastitis. However, sensor systems have much more potential to support the farmers’ operational management of udder health.

Cows needing attention at drying off typically have an intramammary infection and need to be identified for appropriate treatment as part of a selective dry cow therapy program. Because there are disadvantages to both false positive and false negative alerts, the sensitivity and specificity of sensor systems should be equally high (over 90%). Alerts should be provided at an appropriate time (a few days before drying off) and detection performance should be reasonable.

Monitoring of udder health at the farm level can be done by combining sensor readings from all cows in the herd. Novel herd-level key performance indicators can be developed to monitor udder health daily. Disturbances at the group or herd level can be detected more quickly by utilizing sensor-based key performance indicators. Sensitivity should be reasonably high and because of the costs for further analysis of false positive outcomes, the specificity should be at least 99.5%. Moreover, sensor-based key performance indicators may be used to evaluate the effectiveness of dry cow and lactational therapy.

How can the management of clinical and subclinical mastitis be supported by sensor systems?

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Current sensor systems aim to detect cows with abnormal milk or mastitis. Although they may be less accurate than visual detection in detecting clinical mastitis, sensor systems have the advantage of multiple measurements per day. Mastitis detection, however, should be approached from a need to intervene (management support) perspective rather than based on clinical mastitis paradigms.

Cows with severe clinical mastitis need to be identified and treated properly as fast as possible. Sensor systems should have a very high sensitivity (at least 95%), combined with a high specificity (at least 99%) within a narrow time window (maximum 12 hours) to ensure that close to all cows with true cases are detected quickly. Since very sick animals may not visit a milking robot, detection algorithms need to take additional data into account, not only milk sensor data.

Cows that do not need immediate attention have a risk of progressing into severe clinical mastitis. However, they should get the chance to cure spontaneously under close monitoring. Intervention is needed for cows at risk of developing chronic mastitis, leading to production losses and increased risk of pathogen transmission. Sensor alerts should have a reasonable sensitivity (at least 80%) and a high specificity (at least 99.5%). The time window may be relatively long (around 7 days). Additional actions may contain further diagnostic testing.

Connected audits to protect pig health 

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In France, three connected tools funded by the Ecoantibio Plan have been designed by IFIP to carry out self-diagnostics on pig health management : PorcProtect, Batisanté and Porcisanté. These three tools, available on smartphones or PCs, are complementary, approaching the issue of helath protection in different ways. PorcProtect focuses on biosecurity in 30 questions for a quick grid, and in 320 questions for a full grid; Bâtisanté provides an update on the management of buildings and livestock equipment in 64 questions illustrated by photos, covering areas including climate and ventilation, access to water and food, quality and type of floors, cleaning and disinfection of rooms, etc. Porcisanté manages interventions on animals in 70 questions also illustrated by photos, including colostral intake, care of piglets, management of sow feed, breeding management, etc.

They all allow farmers to review the basics and their regulatory compliance. A report is produced with a color code according to the rate of risky practices (red high risk, orange medium risk, green low risk). Prioritization of the actions to be corrected is therefore immediate. Technical sheets are also included to present areas for improvement. A comparison with the results of previous audits on the same farm is possible in the three tools as well as a comparison with other farms in PorcProtect.

Search «batisante» or  «porcisante» in the Play store or Apple store. Website: porcprotect.ifip.asso.fr

GVET : to get an electronic medicine books for pigs

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In France, 90% of pig farmers record veterinary treatments in a paper register but 25% say they are ready to use an electronic version. GVET, funded by the Ecoantibio plan, facilitates this process on PC or smartphone by providing a standardized catalog of veterinary drugs to speed up the entry of the names of the drugs, the dose, the duration of treatment, and the withdrawal time prior to slaughter.

GVET also monitors antibiotic usage for each type of animal (sows, suckling piglets, weaned piglets, fattening pigs) with indicators validated by ANSES.

Data from farms are centralized in a national database hosted at IFIP to allow publication of collective references on antibiotic usage in France. Farmers will be able to compare their results with benchmarks to discuss ways of improvement with their veterinarians and meet societal expectations.

Two manufacturers have integrated GVET into their softwares : Isagri (in Ediporc and Pig’up) and Asserva (in Smartpharm). Deployment in the field is therefore operational. However, there is still a lot of educational work to do with farmers to help them change their habits and computerize their treatment register, without their having any regulatory obligation to do so.