Episode 218 - Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza confirmed on Idaho and Michigan dairy farms - UMN Extension's The Moos Room
What is up, everybody? This is doctor Joe Armstrong. It is Friday, March 29th at 3:30 PM. We have two things to report on right now. We have a press release from the Idaho State Department of Agriculture, and we have a new release from USDA just dropped.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:Lots of things to talk about. In the Idaho State Department of Agriculture announcement, they are saying they have positive samples for high path avian influenza on a dairy herd in Idaho. Now in the USDA update, we do not have from USDA confirmed positive samples from Idaho, but we do have confirmed presence of high path avian influenza on a Michigan dairy herd. So now we've got Idaho, Michigan, Texas, and Kansas. The other important thing to note in USDA release is that they have presumptive positive samples from Idaho, New Mexico, Ohio, and Texas, and they will update those as they are either confirmed or not confirmed as positives.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:Before we move on to more cow discussion, I think it's important to update some of the other things in the USDA announcement. USDA reiterated that there is no concern about the commercial milk supply, And FDA also commented in this announcement saying that FDA's long standing position is that unpasteurized raw milk can harbor dangerous microorganisms that can pose serious health risks to consumers. And FDA is reminding consumers of the risks associated with raw milk consumption in light of the high path avian influenza detection. Pasteurization has continually proven to inactivate bacteria and viruses like influenza in milk, and FDA is standing behind that. So we are confirming that right now there is no risk to the commercial milk supply, and FDA is standing behind pasteurization.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:Please don't drink raw milk. The other thing that's important to note before we start talking about cows is that in this announcement, USDA stated that initial testing has not found changes to the virus that would make it more transmissible to humans, and that while cases among humans in direct contact with infected animals are possible, this indicates that the current risk to the public remains low. That statement's important. I have a feeling we'll be coming back to it. USDA is stating that cases among humans in direct contact with infected animals are possible.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:I am not a human physician. You need to be watching out for your employees. You need to be watching out for yourself. If you or your employees have symptoms, you need to be talking to your human physician. You cannot confirm a human case without testing.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:It cannot be done with symptoms alone. If you have flu like symptoms, if you're worried about it in any way and you've been exposed, if you've been in contact with cattle that fit the case profile, you need to talk to your human physician. I don't think I have to comment on that anymore at this point, but I do think we'll be coming back to that statement at a later date. Alright. Let's talk about cows.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:The Michigan herd, where we have confirmed presence of high path avian influenza, USDA is stating they recently received cattle from Texas. In the Idaho State Department of Agriculture announcement, they stated that the herd that tested positive in Idaho recently received cattle from a state that had confirmed cases of high path avian influenza. These are definitely more puzzle pieces to fit in. It is not confirmed that this is passing from cow to cow. We're gonna wait on USDA APHIS to take the lead on that as well, but this is another thing.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:And you heard me say it in the podcast last night. In my personal opinion, hear that, digest it, my personal opinion, I would be very surprised if this did not transfer from cow to cow. And this is potentially evidence that that is the case. But birds are everywhere. Wild birds are still playing an important role, and wild birds definitely have the ability to transmit high path avian influenza.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:Now, what we're looking for when we talk about Koch's postulates or something similar to Koch's postulates is consistency of results. So the more times something happens, the more likely it is that that is real. If we have more reports of people importing cattle from places that have tested with high path avian influenza and then they follow the case profile shortly afterwards because they did not follow a quarantine or they have some kind of exposure to those animals that potentially are positive, it becomes more and more likely. But right now, we still don't have enough to say, yes, for sure this is transmitting between cows, but USDA has definitely changed their tune. They are now stating that cow to cow transmission cannot be ruled out.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:What does this change, if anything? Well, I think it gives us some opportunity to talk about biosecurity in a little different way where we talk about what should we be doing if we have potential for transmission between cows. Again, I'm not saying that we have any evidence that it does transfer from cow to cow, but given the uncertainty, I think this is a good conversation to have. Now this is a difficult thing to do compared to how easy it is to say. In the ideal world, until we figure out what's going on, you would limit animal movement as much as possible onto your farm.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:That is very, very, very difficult to do and very easy to say. Quarantining animals is a valuable tool to help you have confidence that you're not bringing something to your herd. How long should that quarantine be? That differs, and the recommendations are all over the board. You see everything from as little as a week to 30 days.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:In this situation, I have seen everything recommended from 30 days all the way down to 14. 14 makes me a little nervous. 30 makes me feel like that's quite long. For this situation, I think 21 days is a good compromise between being safe enough but not overly safe to where it's going to hinder day to day operations in a massive way. Now this is still going to hinder day to day operations and it's going to be a pain But I think 21 days is the right number for now, reserving my right to change my mind as we get more information.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:In addition to a quarantine, I think this is a time where we limit visitors to the farm. Now there's all sorts of people that come to the farm. I'm not saying to tell your nutritionist not to come. That that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that now is not the time to have a tour or to have a bunch of people come to the farm just because they wanna learn about the farm.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:We're gonna have to take a break on that because it's too hard to get everyone's history to know where they've been and where they were, all those things. It's just not a time to have a ton of people visiting your farm, more than is what is necessary for your operation to continue and be successful. So here's the big one. We've talked about animals. We've talked about visitors.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:What about vehicles? How much do we focus on vehicles? Is it worth the effort when we know that wild birds are likely playing a part in this and we're not controlling where the birds are going? It's something that I've debated quite a bit, and I'm not quite sure what to do with it. I think there's some basics that we can definitely take into consideration.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:Clean trailers are a big one. Clean vehicles that we know have been to other farms. Those are basics. When we do have vehicles on the farm, we need to do that in a way, especially if we know they're going to other farms, in a way that the off farm vehicle traffic and the on farm vehicle traffic don't interact as much as possible. We just need those routes and everything to overlap as little as possible.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:Farmers, producers are some of the most creative and innovative people that I know, and I think that's all I really need to say about vehicles. You can take it from there. You will figure out how to make that work on your farm. One of the big things I'll talk about next will involve a vehicle that I think we need to keep an eye on. So when we have sick cattle, sometimes we have dead cattle.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:In this situation, fortunately, there's not a whole lot of mortalities associated with this disease, but there's still mortalities on a dairy. Whether or not they are associated with this illness that we're seeing, we need to be disposing of those carcasses appropriately. There are only a few approved ways to dispose of a carcass. The ones that are most practical are what I'm going to talk about. That includes composting, deep burial, and rendering.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:Composting is awesome. It's a luxury, but, being able to keep everything on-site can be very beneficial. So if you have the ability to compost, I encourage you to do so. Our other options, deep burial. Deep is the keyword if we're gonna have livestock that die we need to bury them in a way that we do not have interactions between that carcass and wildlife.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:I've hammered out repeatedly why we need to be worried about wildlife. So I don't think we need to go into that any further. Our last option is rendering. Now rendering is an amazing service provided to the cattle industry, dairy and beef. We just need to think about where that truck that comes to pick up an animal for rendering goes on our farm.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:It's similar to the conversation we had about vehicles. We need to figure out how we can minimize the overlap between the route that rendering truck takes and all the other traffic that happens on the farm. Ideally, we would have that rendering truck not even come on the farm, if possible, to pick up the animal. That's not always, something that can happen. But we need to think about where we're having that rendering truck go and what route they're taking so that we can minimize the overlap between that truck and everything else.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:Alright. Let's talk about trailers and animal transport. Anything that is used to transport animals needs to be clean. So that includes your own trailers or any hired outside transport. If that outside transport shows up to haul animals for you, look at the trailer before you put your animals in it.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:If it's not clean, animals don't go. When you're done using your own trailer for transport, I encourage you to clean it out right away so that it's sitting there ready to go, and you aren't tempted to put animals in a dirty trailer because you're short on time, and you didn't clean it right away when you were done using it. When we're talking about on farm staff, I think there's a lot of workers that tend to work at multiple locations, and that's totally fine. We are short on labor everywhere, and we absolutely need that to be the case. But when we look at that situation, we need to make sure that we are not taking things from workplace to workplace.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:For me, that comes down to probably having dedicated clothing, dedicated PPE, so boots, coveralls, all of that dedicated to one site that never leaves the farm. That would be ideal. And that brings us to service providers. There's all sorts of service providers that come to farms, whether that's nutritionists, veterinarians, custom manure hauling, hoof trimmers. The list can go on and on and on.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:Sometimes shared equipment is unavoidable. If that's the case, if there's equipment that's going to be used and it's gonna be used at one farm and then be used at another farm, we need to be careful about washing, cleaning, and then disinfecting that equipment. When possible, if we don't have to share equipment, that'd be great. And that doesn't have to be just equipment. So we have tools and things that maybe we just use only at one farm.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:That's awesome. But that can also apply to boots and coveralls. If you're visiting a farm on a regular basis and you know you're gonna be there every week, maybe you do have a dedicated pair of boots there that only live there. I know I'm going to be asked about equipment. What's an example of equipment that you could have dedicated to a farm?
Dr. Joe Armstrong:Well, I think one of the examples would be like a bolus in gun. If you have to continually give boluses for some reason at a farm, let's say, like, bovacauk, maybe there should be a gun that only lives at that farm. Rather than having to take the one out of your truck, use it, wash it, disinfect it, put it back in the truck. Might just be safer and better for everybody if there's just one that lives at that farm. The other thing that concerns biosecurity, biocontainment in this announcement is that FDA is saying that if you are going to feed milk from any cows that are infected or exposed to other cows that are infected, that milk should be pasteurized.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:In the announcement, USDA, FDA, they recommend, and they specifically mentioned calves. That's definitely a piece of this, and that matters to all of us. But I would say, regardless of what animal you're going to feed that milk to, I would prefer it be pasteurized at this point. Last thing before I let you go. I think it's important to note that we have samples that have tested positive, and some of those samples have been milk.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:So when we talk about the potential for milk to have virus in it, we also need to look at what kind of spills we're having with milk in the milk house and milk that's associated with trucks that pick up from multiple sites. So anything in the milk house that gets spilled needs to be cleaned up right away. Now remember, we do not have anything that tells us right now that this is able to go from cow to cow. But I think with the uncertainty, it's better to be a little safe. It's a balancing act.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:You'll have to decide for yourself. Probably has to deal with a lot of your own risk tolerance or intolerance. But these are the things that I'm thinking about right now that seem practical, and I think you should consider. With that, I think we're done for today. If you have comments, questions, scathing rebuttals, those go to themoosroom@umn.edu.
Dr. Joe Armstrong:You can call us, 612-624-3610, and I'm gonna cut the plugs there. Thank you, everybody. I'll talk to you soon.
