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Bvd positive

  • 26-02-2014 9:28am
    #1
    mahoney_j
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,484 ✭✭✭✭


    Talking to a neighbour last night in year 3 of Bvd scheme and he had a calf come back positive on ear notch.fully closed herd as regards buying in stock.can they come back negative on retest ???.he is going to blood calf today


Comments

  • #2
    biddy2013
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,643 ✭✭✭biddy2013


    mahoney_j wrote: »
    Talking to a neighbour last night in year 3 of Bvd scheme and he had a calf come back positive on ear notch.fully closed herd as regards buying in stock.can they come back negative on retest ???.he is going to blood calf today
    does he border onto any other farm?


  • #3
    mahoney_j
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,484 ✭✭✭✭mahoney_j


    biddy2013 wrote: »
    does he border onto any other farm?

    Yes mine,another dairy herd and a fairly extensively ran beef farm.im clear so far touchwood as is other dairyman.could it be just a fluke result and pass on retest.bound fences all good etc and as I said stock only go one way from this farm


  • #4
    biddy2013
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,643 ✭✭✭biddy2013


    seems strange, get dam and calf tested and see.


  • #5
    biddy2013
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,643 ✭✭✭biddy2013


    was thinking about this, there are a few options
    1. test is wrong
    2. was the dam tested before, as in is she a heifer and mightnt have been tested before
    3. transient infection from a neighbour- we had this in year 1


  • #6
    tanko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,315 ✭✭✭tanko


    mahoney_j wrote: »
    Talking to a neighbour last night in year 3 of Bvd scheme and he had a calf come back positive on ear notch.fully closed herd as regards buying in stock.can they come back negative on retest ???.he is going to blood calf today

    Same thing happened to me three years ago. I operate a closed herd but a neighbour bought in heifers which had BVD and I ended up with one. He should blood test the mother as well especially if its a heifer. If its a cow and had a normal BVD negative calf last year she can't be a PI but picked up the infection while pregnant.

    Farmers need to remember that these BVD ear notch test aren't 100% accurate, wrong results have been given out. If in doubt about an animal get a blood test done.


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  • #7
    mahoney_j
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,484 ✭✭✭✭mahoney_j


    tanko wrote: »
    Same thing happened to me three years ago. I operate a closed herd but a neighbour bought in heifers which had BVD and I ended up with one. He should blood test the mother as well especially if its a heifer. If its a cow and had a normal BVD negative calf last year she can't be a PI but picked up the infection while pregnant.

    Farmers need to remember that these BVD ear notch test aren't 100% accurate, wrong results have been given out. If in doubt about an animal get a blood test done.

    Just talking to him now.he was advised to isolate calf for 21 days and test again preferably blood.mother was a heifer and clear in year 1 and grandmother in in lactation 5 .goibg to blood both cows after dinner and calf in 21 days which is a bit of a nuisance.he has been in a pennof 10 calves for over a week and they are all negative.


  • #8
    visatorro
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,546 ✭✭✭visatorro


    i had problem with bvd two three years ago. tested milking cows thru milk recording. four came back positive. one not incalf killed her straight away. vet was tb testing the following week. asked her to blood test the remaining three. they came back negative! still decided i had a problem, so decided to blood test a group of heifers. two tested positive. one died. for silly reasons we left the other one in a pen on its own. tagged it with bvd tag sent the sample away and it came back negative!! so basically every test has been proven unreliable here anyway.. and i still had to pay for each test. i still got rid of the animals in question though.


  • #9
    biddy2013
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,643 ✭✭✭biddy2013


    well op did he retest?


  • #10
    mahoney_j
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,484 ✭✭✭✭mahoney_j


    biddy2013 wrote: »
    well op did he retest?

    Yep talking to him at weekend,blood tested calf,dam and grand dam and all came back negative.calf then went for a more sensitive test and clear again so calf is now Bvd negative.lab say its very unusual


  • #11
    tanko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,315 ✭✭✭tanko


    mahoney_j wrote: »
    Yep talking to him at weekend,blood tested calf,dam and grand dam and all came back negative.calf then went for a more sensitive test and clear again so calf is now Bvd negative.lab say its very unusual

    Wrong results aren't "very unusual" at all.


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  • #12
    frazzledhome
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,278 ✭✭✭frazzledhome


    tanko wrote: »
    Wrong results aren't "very unusual" at all.

    Could we be getting negatives that are actually positive? Im wondering now


  • #13
    moy83
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,701 ✭✭✭moy83


    frazzledhome wrote: »
    Could we be getting negatives that are actually positive? Im wondering now

    Im thinking along those lines aswell . They must be going through alot of samples a day , it wouldnt be hard to mix up a few .


  • #14
    mf240
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,881 ✭✭✭mf240


    frazzledhome wrote: »
    Could we be getting negatives that are actually positive? Im wondering now

    Anythings possible. But I doubt it. I'd say the calf in question was transiently infected and had cleared by the retest. Pi s never clear as their immune system doesn't recognise the virus as "foreign "


  • #15
    tanko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,315 ✭✭✭tanko


    Three years ago I had a calf that my vet suspected had BVD which tested negative on an ear notch test, and then tested positive on another ear notch and two blood tests over the following three months.

    Is any test 100% reliable, surely there's always a chance of human error occurring?


  • #16
    A cow called Daisy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,301 ✭✭✭A cow called Daisy


    Had calf came back as positive recently. Got phone call to tell me what i should do regarding isolation etc. Was told 1 in 4 come back as positive from blood test. Letter today says reading was 2.54. Is that high or low
    The mother of calf is second calver and had no direct contact with any strange stock in two years.


  • #17
    generic2012
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,013 ✭✭✭generic2012


    tanko wrote: »
    Three years ago I had a calf that my vet suspected had BVD which tested negative on an ear notch test, and then tested positive on another ear notch and two blood tests over the following three months.

    Is any test 100% reliable, surely there's always a chance of human error occurring?

    No test is 100% reliable. All test methods have specificity and sensitivity ratings. Sensitivity is the amount of real positives in a sample of positives, so if you got a 100 animals tested positive and sent the bodies away they might find only 99 were actually positive, 99% sensitivity. Specificity is the amount of real negatives in a sample.

    Specificity for the methods of BVD testing in Ireland is 97-98%, I think sensitivity is less than 1%. Its a lot when you think of how many cattle there are in the country....


  • #18
    moy83
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,701 ✭✭✭moy83


    A cow called Daisy wrote: »
    Had calf came back as positive recently. Got phone call to tell me what i should do regarding isolation etc. Was told 1 in 4 come back as positive from blood test. Letter today says reading was 2.54. Is that high or low
    The mother of calf is second calver and had no direct contact with any strange stock in two years.
    I think ours was 5.something and he is definitely a positive so yours sounds low but I don't know if thats good enough either .
    I think you will have to wait 3 weeks to retest anyhow


  • #19
    Injuryprone
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,048 ✭✭✭Injuryprone


    A cow called Daisy wrote: »
    Had calf came back as positive recently. Got phone call to tell me what i should do regarding isolation etc. Was told 1 in 4 come back as positive from blood test. Letter today says reading was 2.54. Is that high or low
    The mother of calf is second calver and had no direct contact with any strange stock in two years.

    Don't know who you were talking to (I've been rang by some pretty clueless people in there) but the statistic is wrong. Don't mean to dash your hopes but AFAIK approx 1 out of 8 initially positive calves comes back negative from the retest. http://www.animalhealthireland.ie/page.php?id=209#BVD

    On your reading, it's been a while since I looked it up so I may be wrong but I think once you're over 1.0 you're positive. Most negatives will be well well below, almost near 0. I'd say 2.54 is fairly high. If you're on Icbf you can check your other calves' readings by clicking them individually in the batch report.

    On the mother, just my opinion but I'd advise not to bother yourself trying to figure out how the heck she got infected (assuming of course you're 100% sure you've no other PI on the farm which at this stage after 2(3) years of testing newborns, you probably should). It would seem that there's just so many ways it can come through your gate, be it the vet, ai man, silage outfit, cattle truck, sales reps, feed Lorrys, over the ditch etc etc etc that it's just not worth worrying about. I know a man who's had a 100% closed herd for over 10 years, does own ai, is totally surrounded by tillage turned up with 2 PIs this year all of a sudden. Figure that one out.....


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