Threat of disease discussed with livestock producers

By MONETTE TAYLOR | South Central Texas Edition

May 30 2002 -- Just as producers think they have conquered all livestock diseases, a new group or outbreak seems to occur, and a new round of discussions and vaccinations become necessary.

Those attending the recent Luling Foundation Field Day in Luling heard Dr. Dee Ellis, area director of the Texas Animal Health Commission, talk about the latest diseases threatening Texas livestock producers.

"Basically, our agency is charged with carrying out any disease programs that the industry asks for," said Ellis, as he related the latest problems and warnings.

Some of the major animal health issues, addressed by Ellis, were West Nile Virus, tuberculosis (TB), brucellosis, and foot-and-mouth disease (FMD).

"The West Nile Virus came into the United States about three years ago from Africa. It does effect people, especially elderly people, and it does effect horses. But, neither people nor horses are the primary host. It is, primarily, a bird disease, and they normally know it's West Nile when they find a bunch of dead birds, especially crows for some reason," he added.

According to Ellis, the West Nile Virus has not been detected in Texas, but it has traveled down the eastern coast from New York and is present in Louisiana and Arkansas. He said it is only a matter of time before it reaches into Texas.

While he did not recommend vaccinating all horses, he said that producers who have valuable horses "might want to talk to their veterinarians," since the vaccine takes six weeks to become effective. He, also, suggested that producers keep alert to the latest news reports concerning the disease.

TB has affected Texas when two, newly-infected herds were found in Schulenburg and the Pecos area last year. Texas was a TB free state until those incidences, according to Ellis.

To be a TB free state, the federal government says a state cannot have a TB-infected herd in a four-year period, or it loses that status.

"The significance of losing your TB free status is that if you have animals that are moving out of state, sexually-intact animals must have a TB test," said Ellis.

While adult breeding cattle, registered and show cattle are already tested, it is important because Texas ships approximately 750,000 feeder heifers out of state every year. As of January 2003, Texas heifers will be tested and all steers will have to have an ear tag, according to Ellis.

"Now, if you're going to a stock show that has interstate animals at it, like Houston, San Antonio or Fort Worth, and purebred shows ... you're going to have to have your animals TB tested," he added.

"This could very well get political before this is all over with."

After Jan. 1, he said there will be only three options. Either the heifers are tested before they are taken to a sale barn, at the sale barn, or at an auto-buying place. It is expected to cause some problems because of the shortage of veterinarians who are necessary to complete the testing. Steers will have to have the ear tag either at the farm or the market.

All of this could change how and where producers are able to sell their cattle in the future.

"If you're in the cattle business, you may want to talk to your vet about TB testing your herd and getting the certified free herd status," said Ellis.

The loss of the TB free status will last two years, unless other infected herds are discovered. Then, it will be extended.

While it can't be proven, it is believed that both Texas herds may have been infected by Mexican feeder steers. "There's nothing wrong running Mexican feeder steers, but if you have a neighbor running them, you'd better make sure your fence is good," he said.

Ellis said the Mexican feeder steers should have the "M" brand along with a blue ear tag, and they don't all look like "rodeo steers."

Another disease of concern in Texas is brucellosis. All states are free of the disease except for Texas and Missouri.

Ellis said Texas was "almost free," going 11 months without the infection, with only a one-year time limit to be declared free, when it was detected in a herd in West Texas.

"People ask me if they should continue to vaccinate their heifers. That's a personal decision, and I'm not going to tell you it's the right thing to do, anymore," he said.

Along with the cattle brucellosis, Ellis reminded producers that there is a hog brucellosis that can make humans more ill than the cattle strain. He recommended wearing gloves when cleaning wild hogs.

FMD was brought up during Ellis' presentation, not because of any outbreaks in the United States, but because producers need to be aware of the possibility.

"I was able to go over to Britain, last summer, for about three weeks. There were nine, government veterinarians who went, as well as two or three private veterinarians. We went over there, number one, to help, and number two, to learn from what they did so if we ever got the problem here, we'd have a clue of how to handle this. Texas is about three times as big as England," said Ellis.

He said that in England, 4 million head of cattle, sheep and hogs were destroyed because of the disease with 2 million more destroyed for animal welfare reasons. There were approximately 1,000 veterinarians and 10,000 other support workers involved, and it cost $6 billion to stop the outbreak which lasted from February until October. He said over 10,000 farms were destroyed and over $14 billion was lost in tourism dollars.

"As a result of that, a couple of good things happened in Texas. For the first time in animal health, the ag industry was acknowledged that our issues and our potential disasters were significant. The governor ordered our Emergency Management Agency, which normally does hurricanes, floods, forest fires ... things like that ... to sit down and work out a plan for how we'd fight Foot-and-Mouth in Texas. Now, we have an organized plan and we have all the resources of Texas at our disposal," said Ellis.