Reduced Fee Johne’s Disease Testing
Dr. Clell V. Bagley, D.V.M.
USU Extension Veterinarian
Utah dairy and beef cattle producers can obtain assistance for funding of the initial testing in their herd for Johne’s Disease and in developing a plan to control it or keep it out. Do one of the following:
- Call the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food (801-538-7161) and tell them that you would like to conduct the Johne’s Disease blood test
in your herd. (The UDAF will pay for the lab costs involved in the blood testing of 30 cows. This funding was obtained from the 2001 Legislature.)
- Ask them to send 30 blood tubes and materials to your veterinarian (give name and address of veterinarian).
- Call your veterinarian and indicate you have requested that those materials be sent. Arrange with him/her to collect the blood samples and submit them. BE AWARE that you will have to pay the fee for the blood collection (and travel, if that is the only reason for coming).
- Have your veterinarian collect the blood from 30 cows, in the second lactation or older, and put their ID numbers on the blood tubes. He/She will submit them to the Utah Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in Logan. The UDAF will pay the Lab for their testing process. If you want this testing to remain anonymous, your veterinarian may submit the samples with just a herd ID number, so he/she knows where the results should go when they come back. This provides you with client privacy protection, so no one else knows the herd identity - if that is what you want.
- Have your veterinarian send you a copy of the results when they arrive from the Lab.
- You can also enroll in the Utah Cattle Health Assurance Plan (UCHAP). (The UDAF applied for and received some special grants which provide the funding for this project.)
- Ask your County Agent (or call the UDAF, as above) for an enrollment form. Fill it out with your name and the info requested and send it to the UDAF.
- (If you have not done the Johne's Disease testing as above, you can use this form to initiate that process, as described above in #1. If you have already done the testing as in #1 above, you can use this process to go to the next step.)
- Request that your veterinarian follow the guides and materials that will be sent. As part of that, he/she will need to visit your operation and discuss a number of management practices. He/She and the materials provided will help you develop a plan to assure the health of the animals in your operation. The funding provided by UDAF will compensate him/her with $200 for the time and effort in doing this, and this program should not cost you additionally, unless you have the veterinarian providing other services.