Johne's disease control is not difficult. It simply takes time, good animal husbandry and identification of infected animals through diagnostic testing. (Updated 3/2010) PREVENTION | REMOVAL DISINFECTION

Protect your young stock by making sure they don’t swallow milk, water or other feed that contains MAP from adult manure. Find and remove infected adult animals to keep your premises free of MAP contamination.

Johne's disease can be controlled and even eliminated from infected herds or flocks. To accomplish this, however, it takes a thorough understanding of the disease by animal owners, consultation with a veterinarian, and requires use of one or more of the available diagnostic tests. Half-hearted or short-term attempts to control Johne's disease generally will fail. A typical herd clean-up program may take 5 years or longer. Faster clean-up programs are possible, but they are usually more expensive. The basics of control are simple: new infections must be prevented, and animals with the infection must be identified and removed from the herd or flock. This web page will describe in more detail how to implement these two basic techniques for Johne's disease control.

A new publication entitled “Successful control of Johne’s disease in nine dairy herds” describes the significant reduction in test-positive cows in herds following basic sanitation methods and testing by ELISA: http://johnes.org/authors/athors2.html. Several excellent lay magazine articles and brochures on Johne's disease control can be downloaded from the section of this website called "Articles and Brochures".

Keep young animals away from adults’ manure. Infected adult animals excrete MAP bacteria in the feces (manure).  Young animals swallowing milk, colostrum, feed or water contaminated with this contaminated manure are at risk of becoming infected. (See Epidemiology – General for more detail). Therefore sanitation and manure management are critical to controlling of Johne's disease. Because of the susceptibility of young animals to MAP infection, it is important to keep them well away from adult manure that may harbor the organism. The longer the separation of young stock and adults can be maintained the better.

Animals should be born in a clean dry environment with minimal fecal contamination. For dairy cattle, prompt removal of the newborn from its mother is recommended for control of Johne's disease, as well as several other dairy cattle diseases. This practice is not practical for many other animal species although in certain circumstances it should be considered. For example, in small herds of pygmy goats, bottle feeding (with pasteurized milk!) newborns housed in a facility separate from the adults by may limit the risk of new MAP infections. If the dam herself is infected however (even if still clinically normal) the offspring may all ready have become infected before they were born.

Manure contamination of feed can occur when the same equipment is used to move both feed and manure - this practice should be avoided. Also, manure contamination of water, particularly ponds, wallows or streams that animals can drink from, must be avoided to limit spread of the infection.Fence off those muddy manure areas before the newborns hit the ground.

If possible, contaminated pastures should be tilled and re-seeded. When possible, heavily contaminated land should be kept free of young animals for at least 4 months while the majority of MAP die off. Recent studies have shown that a small population of MAP may still remain up to a year later – therefore do not put young animals on fields recently treated with manure from or grazed by infected animals, and do not feed the next crop to young animals. See Biology of MAP for more detail on the organism in the environment.

Feed uncontaminated milk and colostrum. Many dams infected with MAP will excrete the bacterium in their milk. MAP excretion in milk happens most often inanimals with clinical signs of Johne's disease, but can occur in infected animals that appear healthy too. Because no diagnostic test candetect all infected animals, to control Johne's disease it is best to avoid feeding of raw, non-pasteurized milk. Artificial milk replacers are pasteurized and considered free of MAP.

Colostrum, the antibody-rich milk produced by dams during the first few days after giving birth, can contain MAP. Because colostrum is critical to the health and survival of newborns, feeding of colostrum is essential. However, the risk of transmitting MAP along with the benefits in colostrum can be minimized by:

Often referred to as a test-and-cull program, this practice is essential to successful control of Johne's disease in herds or flocks in a reasonable period of time. Clearly, there are situations where alternatives must be considered: testing and culling of all test-positive animals is not always required. With the great diversity of animal species affected by Johne's disease and the differences in husbandry practices and economic value of these different species, it is difficult to generalize about test-and-cull recommendations. Decisions on how best to implement testing in a Johne's control program should be made in consultation with a veterinarian. For details about available laboratory tests for Johne's disease for different species, see the diagnosis section of this web site for the species of interest.

No matter what species, try to keep good animal identification and breeding records.  Your control program will be much more effective if you can look back and see who might have been exposed while young, or which animals were born to what later turned out to be an infected dam.

MAP is resistant to most disinfectants; washable tools, troughs, and feed dishes may be treated as directed on the bottle with a disinfectant labeled as “tuberculocidal”. Since organic material deactivates the disinfectant, items should thoroughly cleaned with soap and water, rinsed and dried before the disinfectant is applied. Tuberculocidal disinfectants usually contain strong chemical compounds and should be used carefully. The instructions provided on the label for proper use and safe handling should be followed precisely.

For more information on controlling Johne’s disease in your herd, at the leftmost column (1) check the species of interest (dairy, beef, goats, sheep, deer/elk, bison, wildlife) and then (2) Select “Control” as your topic of interest.