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Could This Be Footrot?

Lush spring pastures (where we have them) and warm moist weather, are the right ingredients for footrot to show up and to spread. From now on farmers will be thinking "Could this be footrot?" whenever they spot a lame sheep.

By Department of Primary Industries - 8th November 2004 - Back to News

There are many causes of lameness in sheep and a few of them, such as shelly hoof and foot abscess, can be easily confused with footrot. In some cases, a lot of time and money can be spent treating a non-existent footrot problem.

Footrot is a contagious disease of sheep and goats, caused by a bacterium called Dichelobacter nodosus. The bacteria cause separation or "under-run" of the horn of the claw from the underlying soft tissues. Where the horn is under-run there is usually a foul smelling greyish scum, but never any pus.

Footrot always starts and progresses in the same way. The first sign is a moist reddening of the skin between the claws. This is followed by under-running of the horn tissue, which commences at the heel of the claw, and progresses towards the toe.

To further complicate the picture, there are hundreds of strains of footrot bacteria and these vary in "virulence" or their ability to damage the feet. Footrot strains can be grouped according to virulence into two broad categories:

• Virulent footrot – Strains which are moderately to highly damaging.
• Benign footrot – Strains which cause little or no damage.

Before taking any action, it is very important to determine the virulence of the strain you are dealing with. This is very much a job for your animal health adviser. It’s well worth spending a lot of time and money on the control of virulent footrot, but it is usually not warranted in the case of benign footrot.

So how do you tell the difference between virulent and benign footrot? The following are the main features of the two syndromes:

Virulent footrot.
During favourable seasonal conditions, such as in spring, a high percentage of sheep (often more than 30%) will have infections which progress to severe horn under-run.

The development of under-run during favourable seasonal conditions is rapid. The infection progresses from slight reddening of the skin between the claws to severe horn under-run, within 2-3 weeks. Sheep are commonly affected in more than one foot and both claws of each foot are usually involved.

Only a small percentage of infections tend to "self cure" as the pasture dries off. Many infections progress to a chronic stage, with the horn becoming overgrown and abnormally thickened.

Virulent footrot causes serious production losses and its control and eradication is highly desirable.

Benign Footrot.
Benign footrot looks the same as the early stages of virulent footrot. The skin between the claws is moist and reddened and there may be slight horn under-run at the heel. However, even when seasonal conditions are ideal, less than 1% of sheep will have infections that progress to severe horn under-run. Compared with virulent footrot, the under-run is slower to develop. Most infections will "self-cure" as the pasture dries off. Very few infections progress to a chronic stage.

Benign footrot is a common disease of sheep and is evident in all areas of moderate to high rainfall in southern Australia. The effect on production in minimal. It is difficult to eradicate benign footrot with our present technology and in most cases, it is not economically warranted.

A suspicion of footrot is no longer cause for dread or panic. With modern treatment techniques, the disease can now be very effectively tackled. But before taking any action, it pays to be certain that virulent footrot is the problem. Keep the suspect sheep isolated and seek expert advice from your animal health adviser.

WILL MILKING COWS FOR 670 DAYS PAY?

Research projects investigating using extended lactation with pasture-based dairy farming are in progress at DPI Ellinbank.

There will be a field day on Thursday, November 18 from 10.15am to 12.30pm to bring farmers and other interested members of the industry up to date with the work being done.

Extending lactation involves milking cows for longer than 300 days (calving cows less than once per year). The idea of milking cows beyond the traditional 300 days receives mixed reactions from people in the dairy industry and there is recognition that it is not the preferred strategy for everyone.

However, there are a number of challenges currently facing the dairy industry and on many farms reproductive performance is less than desired resulting in high cull rates, the use of induction, and/or many carry-over cows in the herd.

Seasonal calving patterns also create a large peak in the workload at particular times of the year. For some farms, this is difficult to manage.

Farmers using extended lactation technology will:

• have more than one mating/calving period during the year,
• select cows with persistent lactations,
• be required to rear less replacements,
• will need to feed cows to maintain an economic level of milk production,
• they will have a more even workload/more flexibility for their work-force.

Depending on the results, the industry will potentially have the information to develop nutritional strategies for cows to sustain long, persistent lactations up to 670 days. Obviously the economics of this will be very important.

For further information about the upcoming field day or this project contact David Cole or Greg O'Brien at DPI Ellinbank on 5624 2222.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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