Listeriosis

TUBBY

HI all

Had a young bullock with Listeriosis today. He is very shook but havent a notion how he got it.
Silage is pretty good (usual amount of spoilage but nothing more).

Any one else ever have this.

Anyway, my question is what can i use to safely disinfect the drinkers while the cattel still use them and what amounts would ye add.

Any advice on the drinkers and experiences with listeriosis welcome...

Justjens

AFAIK it's caused by a ph imbalance and usually only occurs while on silage. I've had a few cases, if they continue to eat and drink they have a good chance of survival, if they stop eating it's because they forget how to and recovery is more difficult.

Hope all works out well....

greysides

Listeriosis is a meningitis caused by Listeria monocytogenes, a bacteria. Infection is from the mouth, via cuts/scratches or damaged teeth. It travels up the nerves to the brain to cause its' effects.
The most frequent source is poorly fermented silage contaminated by soil. The soil is the normal residence of the bacteria which likes the low oxygen and high pH levels of poorly compacted silage and multiplies to increase the infectivity levels. Moulds like similar conditions so the two often occur together. Throw away spoilt areas of silage.

Treatment needs to be early. Often the condition is not recognised in time - the previous day the animal looked 'off' or 'not right someway' but not enough to warrant action.
In some highly infected cases animals can go from 'not acting right' in the morning to down and moribund by evening.

Due to the common source of the infection other cases need to be actively looked out for to catch the problem earlier. Often there is only the one case but there's no guarantee of that.

Listeria can also cause abortion, 'silage eye' eye infection and septicaemia in calves.

I'd empty the troughs and wash out with an iodine based disinfectant but there's unlikely to be any great source of infection in the troughs.