There’s something new for beef producers to worry about.
Its called neospora and its role in life is to cause abortions in cows.
Well known in the dairy industry, especially in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, the microscopic parasite is starting to show up in beef herds and is attracting the attention of veterinarians like Cheryl Waldner.
“It’s something that people are just starting to recognize and actually look for, and if you look for it hard enough you’ll find it,” she said.
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A post-graduate student at Saskatoon’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine, who is working as a vet in Sundre, Alta., Waldner is conducting preliminary research into the rate of neospora infection in beef herds.
Her curiosity was piqued when she noticed several beef herds in her area experienced abortion rates of four to eight percent instead of the usual two to three percent.
After blood tests, neospora was found to be causing the problem.
That came as a surprise since the disease is usually associated with dairy cattle.
“It may be news to some veterinarians as well as some producers that it’s also a disease of beef cattle,” said Waldner.
In most cases, neospora is part of the normal “background rate” of abortions, she said, but in some infected herds it can cause severe losses.
Animal health experts say there’s no reason to panic.
“We do know we have it in the province, but we really don’t know whether it’s increasing or not,” said Sandra Honour, an epidemiologist with Alberta Agriculture. “There is no evidence of a crisis at all at this point.”
Neospora, a single-celled parasite, kills a fetus by invading its brain and nervous system. It’s not known where it comes from or how it spreads. No prevention method or treatment exists.
Better diagnostics
Waldner said the disease has likely been around for a while in beef herds in Alberta and B.C., but the diagnostic tools to identify it have only been recently developed.
In herds she has looked at, five to 25 percent of the cows test positive for the parasite, but it can run as high as 70 or 80 percent. Cows that are positive are about five times more likely to abort than non-infected cows.
The parasite probably has a second host, such as a carnivorous mammal, or a predatory or scavenging bird, on which it travels from one cow to another. Some contend the parasite can be picked up in feed contaminated by fecal material from wild animals.
“Until we understand the life cycle of the parasite, giving really good recommendations on control is difficult,” said Waldner.
The only advice she can offer producers is to exercise good hygiene with cows, like separating an aborting cow from others in the herd to avoid exposure to infected fluids and providing clean bedding at calving.
Joyce Van Donkersgoed, a beef cattle veterinarian at Lacombe, Alta., said producers with unexpected high abortions rates in their herds, (around five percent) should collect a fetus and placental material for analysis.
Dairy producers in B.C. are advised by that province’s animal health officials to test all new cows for neospora.
