Fre(e)mont Not Free of Suspects

Today we followed up on the comparative cervical injections that Dr. Schwarck and Dr. Baer performed Monday on a 1500 head dairy that is trying to move down to Indiana. We were checking the 30 suspects and their double injections on the neck. The front-most injection is the Avian tuberculin strain and the second is the Bovine strain. The antigens of these 2 can cross-react with the animal's antibodies during the caudal fold injection, so the comparative cervical tries to use more isolated strains that are void of many of the cross-reacting antigens. The skin thickness is measured the day of injection (Mon) and the day of reading (today). The differences in the thicknesses are compared and the difference determines if the animal is negative, a suspect, or a reactor.

By protocol, each animal that was injected by the veterinarian, MUST be read by the same doctor. Therefore, Dr. Schwarck could not assess Dr. Baer's cows, and vice versa. Both docs found 1 suspect in each of their animals. This correlates with a similar thickness between the avian and bovine reactions. Ideally, we want avian to be larger because then the antigens are not reacting with bovine antibodies, and therefore, the animal is assumed to be bovine TB free. However, 2 were not and were in the suspect zones. These correlated with approximate widths of 13-13.5 mm for avian and nearly the same for the bovine strain.

The suspect animals were taken immediately from the farm and off to the lab for culture, histopath, and will be slaughtered to avoid additional contamination and because they would not be allowed across state lines anyway. If Indiana's Board of Animal officials accepts the quick results from the histopath, which would be back by about Wednesday, then the owner can move his animals without culture results, which can take up to 6 months (sheeesh!) to get back.

1399 was labeled as suspect. She was tagged with a pink ear tag and left the farm the day of reading.

Today was fun and I'm glad I got to experience what a secondary test is like instead of only the initial whole herd testing. I'm sad to say, however, that 2 of those beautiful dairy girls will have to be "put down." (How's that for a nice cow euphemism for ya?)

This made for a quick week! Tomorrow is already Friday! Holy COW! I went into the school today to see if Dr. Ames or Dr. Curry were around doing anything fun, but there wasn't much life in the teaching hospital and nothing too exciting on the calendar. Bummer....but, I'm enjoying my early afternoon off!