The Milk Producer - September 2011 - (Page 32)

RESEARCH By Natalie Osborne Disease detection C Monitoring system draws on data from established dairy industry organizations Accurate disease surveillance systems are important for health and safety, but monitoring every dairy farm in Ontario is a daunting task, says Kelton. Ontario veterinarians routinely submit dairy cow tissue and blood samples to the university’s Animal Health Laboratory (AHL) for testing. Kelton and his team can use test results from these samples as a reliable way to gauge disease status in Ontario herds. However, the samples are not accompanied by detailed farm location data, making it difficult to map out exactly where herd health problems are occurring. What’s more, not every farm uses a veterinarian, so researchers can’t tell how much of the province the AHL samples cover. In contrast, more than 3,200 Ontario dairy producers use CanWest DHI. A milk recording service, DHI receives monthly herd milk samples and maintains a current inventory of dairy cows on each farm. It also offers disease-testing services for common problems, such as Johne’s. DHI lets Kelton’s team get data from farms that may not use traditional veterinary services or the AHL. Combined, the two sources offer a steady supply of reliable and relevant disease status information for Ontario dairy herds. However, researchers would still like to pinpoint exactly where disease is occurring. A functioning University of Guelph researchers have designed surveillance system must an efficient, low-cost surveillance system that be able to describe how could make disease monitoring more effective. the cases are dispersed 32 | September 2011 | MilkPRODUCER throughout the province, which areas have the highest prevalence and whether a disease is spreading to new areas. DFO can help in this area. It has the geographic co-ordinates for each of the 4,100-plus Ontario dairy farms. After signing confidentiality agreements with producers, Kelton and his team manually matched test results to specific farm locations. Researchers then compared the AHL’s and DHI’s sample data throughout the province. They found some areas were better represented by one agency than the other, but combining the two gave them the most complete coverage. Manually matching each test result to a specific farm was a timeconsuming, labour-intensive process. Researchers believe the system could be streamlined if the AHL, DFO and DHI used a common herd identifier for their samples. For example, if each test result was accompanied by the DFO licence number or the OnTrace premise ID, plotting the data on a map would be much easier. “Incorporating the DHI disease test results and herd inventories into a combined database with AHL and DFO enhances our surveillance coverage and capacity,” says Kelton. “What’s more, because we get constant milk samples, we could use this system to actively take a random sample of herds and determine their health status.” ombining detailed farm location information from Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) with herd data from two leading industry organizations could offer researchers a more relevant, reliable picture of the province’s dairy herd health. University of Guelph researchers have designed an efficient, low-cost surveillance system that could make disease monitoring more effective. The system uses an innovative combination of information from the University of Guelph’s Animal Health Laboratory (AHL), CanWest Dairy Herd Improvement (DHI) and DFO. Population medicine professor David Kelton and his team believe together these resources can offer a complete picture of dairy herd health in Ontario. “This is the first time information from these three groups has been combined in this way,” says Kelton. “We’re trying to make the best use of these existing data sources to meet the surveillance objectives of the Ontario Animal Health Surveillance Network.” Natalie Osborne is a student writer with the University of Guelph’s office of research. Funding is provided by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Milk Producer - September 2011

The Milk Producer - September 2011
Contents
Editor’s Notes
DFO Chair’s Message
Dairy Update
Johne’s Update
DFC Promotion
Producer Profile
Cover Story
Research
Applied Science
Ruminations
Alternative Energy
Markets
New 'N' Noted
Back Forty

The Milk Producer - September 2011