Disease Recording A Cross-Roads for the Dairy Industry

1. Disease RecordingA Cross-Roads for the Dairy Industry David Kelton, DVM, PhD Department of Population Medicine University of Guelph

2. Questions to be addressed……… • Why record disease events? • Where did this road begin? • How far have we come? • What are the paths ahead? What do you think?

3. Our Interest in Animal Health The Ontario Milk Act says: “Milk from healthy cows” What does ‘healthy’ mean?

4. Why record clinical cases of disease? • Diagnosis and therapy of sick • Health management – benchmarking • Biosecurity - animal movement • Genetic selection – functional traits • Surveillance for status & trade • Research – prevention & control • Sign-off for herd health status

5. Diseases of interest………… Farm Level & Practice Level

6. National Disease Recording - History 1990’s • Lots of clinical disease diagnosed daily • Computers allow ‘easy’ collection of data • Interest in National Disease Recording for surveillance and genetic evaluation! • The next logical step…….

7. National Disease Recording - History

8. Focus on Peri-partum Diseases • Retained Placenta • Metritis • Mastitis • Milk Fever • Ketosis • Lameness • Displaced Abomasum

9. Prepared for: Cattle Breeding Research Council of Canada - 1997 Recommendations for National Standards

10. Canadian National Health Project -2007

11. CanWest DHI Health Report

12. Herds Recording Disease Events 2X Canadian Health Project

13. Challenges of Disease Recording • Disease Definitions • Clinical….Sub-clinical….“Test” Accuracy….Repeatability…. • Does disease get recorded at all….anywhere….how much? • Does disease get into an electronic database….anywhere? • Does disease get uploaded to a central location….where? • Can disease move from a local bureau to a central location? • Is there any disease data validation….anywhere?

14. Disease Events Recorded on Ontario Dairy Farms from 1999 to 2009! How do we measure progress?

15. Genetic Evaluations with Canadian Data Table 4. Estimated incidence, sire (s2s) and phenotypic (s2y) variances, and heritabilities (h2) for 8 disease traits when only data from herds with at least 1 case of the disease analyzed are kept in the dataset. T. F.-O. Neuenschwander, 2009

16. Genetic Evaluations with Canadian Data Relationship between percentage of healthy cows and relative breeding value (RBV) for mastitis resistance of sires with at least 30 daughters (n=180) SCC & Clinical Mastitis A. Koeck et al., 2011

17. Veterinary Sign-off on Animal Health • EU – Dairy Herd Health Declaration and RAMP • USA – Food Safety Modernization Act – Jan, 2011

18. Options moving forward…….. • Status quo….. • Increase emphasis on milk testing • Incorporate AHL submission data • Target a particular disease…….

19. Disease Event Recording through DC305 Used at the FARM and PRACTICE Level

20. Increased Testing of Milk >75% of Ontario dairy Herds are enrolled with DHI Easy access to individual cow (& bulk tank) milk samples for Active and Passive Surveillance

21. Milk tests – easy but NOT cheap! • Johne’s Disease • BLV • Neospora • Staph aureus • Strep ag • Ketones • BVD • ??????

22. Surveillance Coverage – Milk vs. Serum

23. AHL Submission Data for Syndromic Surveillance Detecting aberrations in baseline data ?? ?? ?? ?? Nanda Dorea, 2011

24. Ontario Johne’s Education and Management Assistance Program Johne’s Disease……..Targetted Dairy Biosecurity Risk Assessment and Management Plan (RAMP)

25. SCC Penalty Level from 500 to 400 500 400 Mastitis Cases Mastitis Cultures Mastitis Treatment (CQM) ~9%

26. Which path should we follow? • As animal health and production professionals, where do you see value in the ongoing efforts to capture Disease Events on Canadian Dairy Farms? dkelton@uoguelph.ca

27. Acknowledgements and Questions