Everyday Biosecurity

- Okay.

Haley, do we wanna go ahead and get started?

Welcome, everybody.

Thanks for joining us for this next webinar in our series.

Just quickly about Penn State and before I get started, I do wanna tell you that this is being recorded and it will be put up on our extension website.

So briefly about Penn State Extension, we believe that all people should have access to science-based education.

Who we are, we're a collection of educators, associates, and faculty that come together when their expertise is needed.

We serve a various different areas from 4-H youth development to animal systems to horticulture, to food, families, health, food safety, and we also have an energy business and community vitality team.

So today, we're gonna talk about biosecurity and we have Dr. Haley Springer with us and we will hopefully have a guest speaker, Dr. Erin Luley with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture to talk about this ever changing outbreak that's happening right now.

So I'm gonna turn it over to Dr. Springer to get started.

If you have any questions, feel free to put it in the Q and A, and if we have time at the end, we'll try to answer them.

- Thank you, Sam.

So we are excited to be here today.

This was a regularly scheduled biosecurity webinar, but obviously in the last few days, the subject matter has shifted a little bit.

So the plan for today is to talk a little bit about why we need biosecurity today and the current issues in the dairy industry that are driving this conversation.

We're gonna talk about some of the biosecurity practices we can implement now to help protect our farms.

And then we are gonna reserve a fair bit of time for Q and A on biosecurity as well as the HPAI or highly pathogenic avian influenza that's been detected in dairy cattle.

For that Q and A session, I am hoping that Dr. Erin Luley from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture will be joining us, so that she can also contribute to answering those questions.

So let's start off with kind of how we got where we are today and where this highly pathogenic avian influenza story started and where it's going from here.

So the HPAI outbreak that we're currently in actually began in 2022.

We have not had enough of a break that we've had an end to this outbreak.

The primary strain that's been spreading in the current HPAI outbreak is an H5N1 strain.

The disease has been reported in a number of animals across the US that includes wild birds as we would expect, as well as domestic birds.

We have seen it in a number of non ruminant mammals and there was one human case reported in April of 2022, that individual had actually worked in depopulating, a positive poultry farm.

So there would've been a lot of exposure in that case.

So relatively low risk from a human health standpoint with this particular strain.

This is a map of the nationwide wild bird detections in this 22 to present HPAI outbreak.

This is current as of March 22nd.

And so you can see that it is very widespread with the exception of Hawaii.

It's been identified in wild birds in every state across the US.

Taking a little bit closer look at Pennsylvania, we can see that a very large portion of Pennsylvania has also seen wild bird detections.

We've also had a number of domestic bird detections across the US.

Here we see all of the counties that have experienced a domestic bird detection since 2022 up until March 20th of this year.

And this is the map for Pennsylvania.

So here we can see that we have seen, particularly in the southeastern part of the state, but also in the north and southwest, we have seen domestic bird detections of the current HPAI outbreak.

In terms of wild and captive wild mammals, these are the detections that we've seen across the US.

Each of the different icons that you see are different species.

And so there's been quite a wide range of species that have been found that we've had detections of this highly pathogenic avian influenza strain from.

One thing I do want you to note is that none of the species that are on this list are ruminants, and that's gonna become important as we start talking about what's happened in just the last few weeks.

So some of the interesting things surrounding this outbreak started just a couple weeks ago.

So on March 20th, the Minnesota Bureau of Board of Animal Health announced the first ruminant infection with the current HPAI strain.

They did confirm it was an H5N1 that was detected in goat kids that had neurologic signs and ended up dying of the disease.

The adults in this herd were healthy and did not show any signs of disease.

The last case that the Minnesota Board of Animal Health reported was that the last case was on March 11th of this year.

This farm had experienced an HPAI outbreak in their free ranging poultry in February of this year, and the goats did share a water source with those poultry.

So certainly, the opportunity for exposure was quite high in that herd.

Concurrently to this news, we were dealing with some non HPAI news at the time at least, and that there was a mystery illness, so an unknown health condition in dairy cattle in Texas.

And what we know about this health condition is that on a herd level, we see reduced feed intakes or reduced dry matter intake, reduced rumen motility, reduced bulk tank milk.

So overall, herd milk production declines and gradually herd production does return with time.

In addition to these herd level signs, about 10% of cows become more severely ill.

It has generally been presented that these are our older cows, so second plus lactation and that they're mid to late lactation typically over 150 days in milk.

When they do present more severely ill, we tend to see abnormal milk.

It's not like a typical mastitis milk, more like colostrum in how it looks.

It tends to get very thick and has a bit of a yellowish to brownish tinge.

For those farms that do have conductivity meters, which is a way that we can indirectly identify abnormal milk, these cows are being are triggering these conductivity meters.

In addition to changes in the milk, these cows tend to have abnormal manure that's dry and tacky.

One of the really good things is that these animals do ultimately recover.

As with any cow that gets really sick late in lactation, she may not come back to lactation quite as strongly as she was before it started.

But deaths from this condition are extremely rare.

There were some cows cold early, but we are finding that most of these cows can return to production.

So the next bit of news that we got, and this is the most recent news that we received on Monday afternoon, and that's that HPAI was detected in four samples from dairies in Texas and New Mexico.

So what do we know about the farms and the samples that were reported?

So the reason we've had over 20 farms affected by this unknown syndrome where we're seeing this abnormal milk in drops in milk production.

Four of those farms, there were bird mortalities on the farm that stimulated some additional testing and four farms in Kansas and Texas.

So two in each state had samples submitted and they did HPAI testing.

Three of those samples were raw milk samples from clinically ill animals and one was an oropharyngeal swab, so a mouth swab from cattle from an affected cow.

So that's what we know about the farms.

What do we know about the findings in terms of the virus?

So we know that it came back positive for HPAI.

The strain has not yet been released.

It is likely knowing what we know about the HPAI strains that have been circulating, it's likely that it was introduced by wild birds.

Genetically, this virus does not carry indicators that it would transmit easily to humans.

So there are more human adapted indicators in influenza viruses, and this virus did not carry those indicators.

And it is likely, as we see with most HPAI strains that cattle are what we call dead end hosts.

And what that means is that when a pathogen enters a dead end host, its ability to spread beyond that animal is relatively low.

And so based on what we know about HPI in general, that is fairly likely in this case as well.

Though it isn't necessarily confirmed for this specific one, though the lack of indicators for human transmission has been confirmed.

What do we need to know about this?

I think one of the really important messages is that the commercial milk supply is safe.

So per the pasteurized milk ordinance, abnormal milk does not enter the food supply.

So any of those more severely affected animals that have abnormal milk, that milk will be diverted or destroyed on farm and it won't enter the food supply.

Additionally, even if some positive milk gets onto bulk trucks, highly pathogenic avian influenza and we know influenza viruses in general are killed by pasteurization.

So any milk in interstate commerce must be pasteurized.

That process would kill influenza viruses.

There's also been concern that potentially milk production could impact milk supply and dairy prices.

But it's thought that as this has hit relatively few farms and as it hasn't hit all at once.

The reduced milk production is really quite minimal on a national scale.

So we do not really expect a major impact on either milk supply or dairy prices.

So knowing all of this, you might be sitting there thinking, well, the mystery is solved.

We know what this unknown health condition is.

And I'm gonna encourage you to take a step back and recognize that we have some ideas and this is a really important piece of information, but I don't think we have the mystery completely solved yet.

Why do I feel that way?

Well, let's take a little bit closer look.

Could it be HPAI?

Could that be the cause of this unknown health condition in dairy cattle?

It certainly could.

But we've only found it on four farms to date.

We've only found it in one animal from each of those four farms.

So we really need to watch for more information coming out about additional testing so that we can better understand what exactly is going on.

If it is HPAI, our biggest risk factor is certainly those wild birds.

However, there's still the possibility that it could be something else.

And for that reason, I encourage dairy producers to not let your guard down.

Most diseases of cattle are gonna transmit by direct contact, potentially by fomites, meaning anything inanimate like boots and tires.

And so I do think it's important that we continue to keep those biosecurity practices up.

And so don't completely let your guard down quite yet.

Keep an eye on what's being announced because I think we will learn more and we will get a better idea as to whether this is truly caused by HPAI or whether there are other factors contributing to this cattle health condition that started in Texas.

So how would you know if your herd is affected?

So some of the big things to watch for, would be a sudden increase in feed refusals.

So we know that dry matter intake decreases on a herd level.

That's one of the really quick indicators of a drop in dry matter intake.

You may also identify a significant reduction in bulk tank milk and in many cases, it sounds like these cows with abnormal milk being identified in the parlor is another really big way that farms are finding this when they do have it.

If you see these or if you're concerned about something similar, please call your veterinarian and they can help you with testing and reporting what's going on so that we can continue to learn how to manage this disease best.

So what else can we do now?

Let's look at some biosecurity practices to help protect your farm.

So this was one of the things I presented at our last webinar, which was just general background on biosecurity.

And biosecurity is a set of management and physical measures.

So it can include both practices that we do as well as things that we may build into our physical structures that where we house animals.

And these things are designed to reduce the risk of both introduction and the establishment and spread of disease within a herd.

This includes infections like what we're we may be dealing with here.

And it also includes transmission between animal populations.

When we look at disease transmission, there are a number of different ways that disease can be transmitted.

So it can be transmitted directly animal to animal.

We can have aerosol transmission, we can have reproductive transmission.

Fecal oral transmission is not at all unusual and that also often pairs with what we call fomite transmission.

And as I mentioned previously, that is disease transmission that's caused by movement of things like manure between farms or between animal groups on boots or on tires or other things.

And I have a syringe on here because a a needle is another really good fomite for moving disease around in a herd.

And then on this slide, I use an insect to designate vector-borne disease.

'Cause often when we talk about vector-borne disease, we talk about things like flies and ticks.

But in this case, I'm gonna go ahead and swap that out for some waterfowl because we're gonna really focus in more on that.

I'm gonna focus on biosecurity practices to prevent cow to cow transmission to prevent fomite transmission.

And then we're gonna talk a bit about wildlife control and things that we can do on that front.

The reason that I wanna talk about these things, we mentioned that this the unknown health condition that started in Texas and dairy cattle could be HPAI.

So I really do wanna give us some things that we can do in terms of preventing wild bird contact with our animals, but it also could be something else.

And so I want to make sure we don't let our guard down on those other fronts as well.

So one of the big risk factors for moving diseases of cattle really regardless of what disease we're talking about is animal movement.

And I think one of the challenges we sometimes face is certainly purchasing calves, heifers or cows, is obviously animal movement.

And that's something we all recognize as animal movement.

But it's also important to remember that heifers returning from a co-mingled heifer grower is also animal movement and a risk of new disease entrants.

So is bringing in a new breeding bull.

And for those of you that might have show cattle returning from shows or fares, are also a risk factor in terms of animal movement.

So what can we do to prevent this type of disease transmission?

One of the best things is to avoid purchasing new cattle.

And if you do purchase new cattle, know the source and disease status of these animals.

When you bring in new animals, whether they're purchased or whether they're just coming back from the fair or any of the other ways that we move cattle, make sure to take some time to monitor them for disease.

If you're able to separate them from the rest of the herd, that is really ideal.

If they're new animals, this is also a great opportunity to get them caught up on vaccines or dewormers, so that they're on the same program that your herd is.

Another really important thing when we're moving animals is to make sure that the vehicles that they're being transported in, arrive on the farm clean and that they aren't carrying animals from other operations.

These can all help reduce the risk of disease transmission.

In terms of fomite transmission, I think it's important to look at a variety of different things.

So we can have transmission by personnel on their clothing or their shoes and that can include visitors as well.

We can have disease transmission on vehicles as well as both animal health and other farm equipment.

So let's take a look at some of the practices we can implement on this front.

In terms of family and employees, those working on a regular basis on the farm, I think it's always a great idea to have farm specific footwear and clothing for these individuals.

If they're on your farm on a day-to-day basis, it's worth having clothing that you know is only worn on that farm.

To provide that, it's important to have a comfortable area that people can change.

It's also important to understand if your employees have livestocks at home.

And if they do, it's recommended that they shower between working with their own livestock and coming into your farm.

With any disease, we're concerned not only about transmission from animal to animal, but also animal to human.

So I think it's always important to also have good hand washing facilities.

In terms of visitors, things that we can do to protect our farm are to avoid unnecessary visitors, particularly in times when risk may be higher.

Keeping a visitor log allows us to better understand the risks and to better identify problems or the potential for problems, should an outbreak occur nearby.

We can also provide boot covers for all our visitors and limit their contact with our animals.

The less that they are in our animal housing areas, the better.

When we do have visitors that need to be in those animal contact areas.

We really should make sure that they have not just boot covers but also coveralls, so that our cattle are not contacting their outside clothing and that anything that they may acquire from your farm isn't going elsewhere.

In terms of vehicles and equipment, some of the things that we can do is require farm specific footwear and clothing provide, sorry, this did not get updated.

So things that we can do in terms of vehicles and equipment is that we can do, we can make sure that we're keeping our vehicles and equipment clean if we're using the same piece of equipment between manure and feed, one of the big things we really want to do is to make sure we're disinfecting it as we go from manure to feed.

Ideally, if possible, we should have separate equipment.

Certainly, if we're talking scrapers that should be simple and every farm should have separate scrapers for manure and feed.

At the same time, it's understandable that not every farm can support two tractors or two skid steers and that's understandable, but we need to make sure that we have a good disinfection protocol as we're moving back and forth between those.

If you're sharing equipment or vehicles with other farms, that's also important.

In terms of vehicles that come and go from your farm frequently, thinking things like the milk truck or feed deliveries, I think it's important to recognize where the risk is.

So those vehicles that move farm to farm are higher risk.

And it's also important to know to try and avoid those vehicles driving through or near animal care areas, if it's at all possible.

And certainly, if that may not be possible depending on how your farm is laid out.

But those are some of the things in terms of vehicles and equipment that we would be looking at.

And now I do wanna get into vector transmission and really focus in on that wild bird piece because with the evidence that we have, there is a possibility that HPAI is at least part of what's going on and could be a health risk to dairy cattle.

So what can we do?

Well, certainly, when we think about wild birds on farms, most of us have seen this before.

It is not unusual for us to have birds in the feed where our animals are eating.

But is this the biggest risk?

And that is really questionable when we're talking about HPAI.

Though it is possible for these types of birds to carry HPAI.

We know that really wild waterfowl are the biggest risk.

So we wanna make sure that we're cognizant of that and really focus in on that first.

But I'm gonna share a number of biosecurity practices that we can implement that can help with managing bird populations overall.

So when we think about managing bird populations on farm, three big things that birds are looking for is food, shelter, and water.

So we can work to break that cycle.

So in terms of food, probably the biggest challenge is that, yes, we can go around and eliminate some of the natural food sources that might be on our farm, but we still need to feed our cows and we know that birds like some of the same things our cows do.

So what can we do?

So certainly, taking time to eliminate natural food sources where possible, is important.

Where we can avoid bird access to feed stuff that's ideal.

This goes for cattle feed, but the bird feeders you might have up are also a source of feed stuffs for the birds.

So we need to also be thinking about whether this is a time when we want to or maybe want to eliminate bird feeding near our properties and near our farms.

We know that waste can draw in birds, particularly our vultures and crows and other birds like that.

So properly disposing of waste is another way that we can help reduce bird populations on farms overall.

And another thing to watch for, especially when we're looking at things like feed trucks or the feed cart that's going in and delivering feed to our cattle.

If you have areas where we know we have waterfowl feces, if you've got a lane that runs next to a pond where we have geese and we all know how messy geese are, if you can limit vehicle access to those areas, it reduces the risk of moving waterfowl feces into the farm and potentially into the feed bunks where your cattle are.

Since every single USDA recommendation sheet ends with this reminder, I'm just gonna remind you that lethal removal of native birds is regulated.

So we wanna take care in those types of management practices.

We can also look at areas where birds shelter and see if we can identify ways to reduce that.

Some of the opportunities that we have are to really look for those areas where birds perch.

Obviously, looking for bird feces is one of the best ways to identify those perches and then find ways that we can help reduce the desirability of that area.

We can patch holes in buildings and that can help deter some birds.

Though our dairy facilities tend to be quite open, so that is probably less viable in our industry.

It's probably important to note that these recommendations from USDA really are targeting poultry facilities, but they are targeting ways that we can help reduce HPAI.

So not everything is gonna directly tie into what we should be doing on dairies, but I think it's a really great starting place for us.

In addition to patching holes, when we do have closed buildings, we can also install barriers or like netting or use deterrents like predator models.

They also have some giant balls that have shapes on 'em that look like eyeballs that can scare birds, other deterrents that we can add that can help reduce the desirability of our barns as shelter for birds.

And finally, water.

And I think this is one of the greatest opportunities we have to really reduce the risk from waterfowl, which we know is our highest risk bird population in terms of HPAI.

So what can we do here?

We can eliminate areas with standing water.

We know that anything that stands for over 24 hours can attract waterfowl.

So if we have areas that you struggle with standing water, consider looking at opportunities to greater fill those areas.

We can also make sure that we're managing pond or ponds and basins.

Well, one of the options is to fence cattle away from ponds, so that they don't have access to where waterfowl are going to be.

You could also try and reduce waterfowl on the property using things like predator decoys.

Because we know that waterfowl frequent surface waters, using unfiltered surface water for cattle to drink is a risk factor.

And this is probably more of an issue out west where there are many fewer water sources, but we certainly could have birds utilizing water troughs that our cattle also use.

So cleaning those water troughs well, and that really means making sure that we are emptying it, making sure we're scrubbing it down, then using a disinfectant.

And even simple disinfectants like bleach can be effective as long as they're used at the proper concentration and allowed to sit for the proper time.

So once we do those things, then we can refill once it's been cleaned, been disinfected, and then rinsed.

We can then refill those water troughs.

And so cleaning out those water troughs is another good opportunity to do to reduce risk.

So regardless of whether we find that this condition is an HPAI based condition or if we ultimately find that it's something else, I think the recommendations that we just went through are some of the best things that we can do in terms of preventing this disease on our farms.

And at this time, I would like to open it up for questions, just a few extra things.

I had a slide in here for late breaking news just in case anything new was announce this morning.

We haven't heard anything new, but keep an eye out for new news.

This is a very rapidly developing situation.

We do expect to hear more in the coming days and weeks.

I'm also gonna have Sam post a number of links.

These all link back to the original announcements that the information I shared is from, as well as some of the biosecurity recommendations so that you have access to those and can implement those.

So we'll start to share those links.

And while Sam does that, I am going to welcome Dr. Erin Luley to the webinar as well.

And both Dr. Luley and I are available to answer any questions that you might have.

- [Dr. Luley] Good morning, Dr. Springer.

Thank you so much for this excellent presentation.

Trying to turn my video on if I can here, but hopefully, you all can hear me.

At this point, a couple items that I want to emphasize.

This is a rapidly evolving situation and as we learn more, we'll certainly share what we can.

There's still quite a few unknowns, but I think one of the important notes that that Dr. Springer emphasized is that biosecurity in general is a very effective tool and is non-specific when we're talking about the potential risk of the HPAI virus to cattle.

The main point with biosecurity to emphasize is restricting any contact between cattle and wild birds, especially wild waterfowl, both direct and indirect contact.

So that is one of the most important aspects of preventing this specific issue, at least from what we know at this point.

Another item that I wanna emphasize is based on the sequencing data from the National Veterinary Services Lab.

At this point, there does not appear to be any evidence of cow to cow transmission and not some of the specific markers of mammalian adaptation that would allow such transmission.

Again, this is a rapidly evolving situation, but that is what we know at this point.

The PA Department of Ag is working to prepare our lab system to accept samples and we're working to put out guidelines to veterinarians related to sample collection and submission.

We encourage producers to contact their veterinarians with any concerns about health events in their cattle and veterinarians are encouraged to report any suspect events to the emergency hotline at 717-772-2852 to speak to the on-call veterinarian.

And we will continue to work with our veterinarians throughout the state with any sample submission items as we learn more about this.

So again, thank you very much, Dr. Springer, for presenting this information.

I'm happy to address any other questions.

We appreciate the support of the industry and the Center for Dairy Excellence in helping to spread the messaging and to help protect our cattle.

And hopefully, this will be something that we can remain free of in Pennsylvania, but a rapidly evolving situation.

- Thanks so much, Dr. Luley.

And as we're talking about things to really emphasize and remember and take away from this talk.

One other thing, and thanks to Beth Meyer from the American Dairy Association for giving us a little reminder here in our Q and A, is that if we are talking about this and especially if we're sharing information on social media, make sure that you're utilizing verified sources of information.

We know that consumers can become concerned very quickly and we wanna make sure that they get the information that they need.

And I think some of the really important information to be getting out is things like we do not see signs of the ability for this to be passed from mammal to mammal.

We also know that influenza viruses are killed by pasteurization.

And so we want to make sure that messaging is getting out.

So be sure as you see new things coming out, that you're going back to the original sources.

And that's one of the reasons that I shared the two news announcements.

One from the Minnesota Board of Animal Health and then the USDA announcement, because that is the source that I go to.

And I hope that you will go to those sources as well.

We do have a number of other questions coming in.

The first one that I see, I'll go ahead and take this question, is does this mean that the SCC of the milk is elevated due to the conductivity test?

So the conductivity test isn't necessarily a direct correlation with somatic cell count, but one of the things that has been reported by veterinarians, and I don't know that we have solid data to report this, but it's wouldn't be surprising to see an increase in somatic cell count.

And one of the reasons for that is cows generally put out a fairly consistent number of somatic cells.

So even just a decline in milk production, which we do see here, can increase overall somatic cell concentration.

So it is possible that somatic cell count could increase.

I'm just gonna quickly jump to a follow up on that.

Dairy farmers are asking how they can detect it early.

So wondering if elevated SEC is one indicator.

And Dr. Luley, I'm not sure if you've seen other recommendations on how to really recognize this.

In talking with vets, dealing with this out west, it does seem that parlor workers are picking up the abnormal milk as one of the early indicators, but also increased feed refusals or overall decrease in bulk tank milk or other things we can look for.

Dr. Luley, are you aware of any other early indicators or any other things that farms should be watching for?

- [Dr. Luley] Dr. Springer, I think you covered the ones that I know of, the herd level milk production, herd level feed intake.

Those seem to be the biggest indicators.

I don't know that somatic cell count has been specifically associated with any of these herds - And I'm not sure that we would see that on a herd level either, more likely on an individual animal level.

So yeah, I think the feed intake milk production overall are two big things to watch.

Another question, and I'm not sure we're gonna have a good answer for this question, but one of our attendees mentions that their farm is a major stop for migratory birds.

Thousands of geese stop in their rye stand everywhere.

I know there are many parts of the state that deal with migrated geese and sometimes even resident geese.

How do we deter this migratory habit?

And I'm not sure I've got a great answer for that, Dr. Luley?

- [Dr. Luley] Dr. Springer, I can provide some support there.

The USDA Wildlife Services potentially has some resources to help with wild bird mitigation.

So that is a potential source to assist farms that are dealing with some of these events.

And also I would mention too that the Pennsylvania Game Commission has a reporting hotline for any sightings of dead wildlife, including birds.

- Excellent.

Thank you.

This next question is definitely a question for you, Dr. Luley.

Has Pennsylvania determined the requirements for farms if a milk movement permit is needed in any disease outbreak situation?

- [Dr. Luley] At this point, we do not have any requirements for permitting in place.

Right now, we are asking that veterinarians report any suspect cases.

Unlike HPAI in poultry, currently, the cases in cattle do not have the same trade implications that require permitted movements.

So at this point, that is not required, but we are still developing the response protocol for this specific incident.

- The next question I think is an important one to address and kind of comes back to that suggestion of making sure we're really looking to our verified sources.

And the next question is, is there a concern about a potential bad actor involvement or is it too soon to speculate?

Dr. Luley, do you wanna take this?

I'm certainly happy to weigh in on this as well.

- [Dr. Luley] Sure.

So the USDA is still advising that this is potentially a multifactorial outbreak, especially given that it seems to be affecting a limited subset of cattle with the greater lactation animals.

And also, there's no evidence to date of this affecting beef cattle.

So there is speculation that there are potentially some other factors in addition to the HPAI virus that are involved in this outbreak situation.

There's no information to support that there is any intentional actions that have resulted in this incident that's in multiple states.

- Thank you.

So I'll go ahead and take the next question.

So the next question notes that they're a small dairy farm, which is certainly common across Pennsylvania.

They have animals on pasture, we all know that birds exist in nature.

What do you recommend as preventative low input methods for small family operations?

From my perspective, I would really start to look at the highest risk interactions.

And for me, that's gonna be waterfowl.

So are there opportunities to reduce interaction between your cattle and waterfowl?

So I would look to things like, can I eliminate standing water from my pastures that might attract waterfowl right into my pasture?

Can I fence off even using a temporary electric tape or something inexpensive?

Can I fence off cattle access to natural water sources that might also be utilized by waterfowl?

So I would really focus on the waterfall side, 'cause we know that that's our highest risk interactions.

We certainly can't eliminate every cowbird interaction on in pastured cattle.

I'm not sure, Dr. Luley, if you have anything else to add to that.

- [Dr. Luley] Just a comment that Dr. Kelly-Hope from USDA, put some helpful resources in the Q and A for reporting wild waterfowl issues to USDA APHIS Wildlife Services.

So thank you Dr. Hope for sharing those contact sources.

- And I'm gonna go ahead and move that- I'm gonna move that information into the chat because I don't think our attendees can see that.

- [Sam] I got it, Haley.

Go ahead.

- Okay, we we got that covered.

- [Dr. Luley] Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Dr. Springer, I think you've covered the high points of limiting contact with potential water sources and wild waterfowl.

That would be kind of the most critical aspect of prevention, from what we know at this point.

- And a bit of a follow up on that, is it recommended to combine cattles in cattle indoors, prevent outdoor or pasture access as a biosecurity measure?

Or is that not necessary at this point?

I think at this point, I'm gonna say look at opportunities to reduce waterfowl contact and keep an eye on where we are seeing this.

And I think that those recommendations may be evolving.

But aside from limiting waterfowl contact, Dr. Luley, are you seeing any current recommendations on cattle confinement at this point?

- [Dr. Luley] No, at this time.

This answer could potentially change depending on further epidemiologic data out of the cases in the southwest.

But we do not have any information to support that recommendation at this time.

- Thank you.

The next question is a really important one and a really good one.

So I'm thankful that this individual asked this.

They state, as someone who visits the farm as part of my job, what can I do to make sure I am not increasing in operations risk?

So from my perspective, a couple of the things that we can look at is, how can we reduce the risk of animal to animal spread or fomite type spread.

And one of the things we can do is make sure that we have boot covers or that we're truly and properly disinfecting footwear between farms.

If you're going into animal areas, you should have clean coveralls for each operation that you're on.

In addition to that, knowing that HPAI may be a factor in this, I also recommend that you look at your exposure to waterfowl and particularly from a footwear and a vehicle standpoint.

So are you visiting farms or visiting even parks where there are a lot of geese or anything like that?

And then we can, if you are visiting areas where there is a lot of waterfowl feces, you might consider car wash or disinfecting clothing and boots before moving on to another farm.

Kind of a follow up to that, what is a good boot disinfectant recommended?

And I'll let Dr. Luley weigh in on this as well.

Simple, cheap.

We do know that bleach at proper concentrations for the proper amount of time is effective.

But some of our really good high-end disinfectants like Virkon are also another excellent option.

And certainly, if your day-to-day job is coming on and off of farms, I would strongly recommend one of those other disinfectants.

Dr. Luley, do you know of any good resources that we can share on that front?

- [Dr. Luley] What I can say is that the avian influenza virus and influenza viruses in general are sensitive to most disinfectants.

And I would encourage folks to check product labels to see if influenza is included on that label for some guidance.

- Excellent.

Thank you.

And it looks like we'll have a link to share soon as well.

So another question and we've got basically two of the same question up next.

What kind of treatment protocol should we be prepared to implement?

Ultimately, the recommendations here are really gonna come down to what your herd veterinarian recommends.

In general, we have seen cows recover with little more than supportive care, especially if this does turn out to be a viral issue.

We aren't gonna be able to use things like antibiotics in these cases, but I recommend that you talk with your veterinarian in terms of how to manage it.

But general recommendations from the veterinary community have been to look at supportive care, things like fluids, if the animals have fevers, you might manage that with medication as well.

But ultimately, it is your veterinarian's decision as to what protocol you utilize.

And I think this is a challenging question that comes up next.

We all fear what we don't understand.

When do we expect certainty about what has affected these cattle and come to a resolution?

Is it a week?

Is it two weeks?

I think the honest answer to that is that we really don't know.

Dr. Luley, do you have any input on that?

- [Dr. Luley] Unfortunately, no, I don't have any more definitive information on timeline.

Situations like these, there's certainly a lot of uncertainty.

I know that's frustrating.

For producers, I understand the public concern about this.

But we're continuing to work with our federal partners to gain as much information as we can on this.

From the Pennsylvania side, we'll certainly be proactive in sharing any information as it becomes available.

- Thank you.

There's a question as to whether this webinar will be available to share with producers that we're unable to listen today.

We are recording it.

I do expect to have that posted.

I'm not sure of the timeline.

Sam, do you have any more insight on that?

- [Sam] I'm going to push for them to try to get it out ASAP, but usually it's about a week turnaround because of needing to add closed captioning.

So I would say within the week, if not sooner.

- Thank you.

There was an anonymous attendee that just reminded us that NMPF and farm program have biosecurity resources and they absolutely do.

If you have a link to those resources, we can certainly shoot them out in the chat.

Otherwise, look to those resources as well, 'cause they are excellent resources.

And then another question that came in, is in relation to the cattle infected with HPAI, do we know the average age or lactation number of the cattle infected?

So currently, we only have four individual animals that have a sample that is tested positive for HPAI.

And I am not aware that any specifics about those animals were released.

So that is separate from what we know in terms of the presentation of the unknown syndrome, the collection of symptoms that we see in herds.

HPAI specifically, we don't have, I am not aware of an answer for.

In terms of the overall condition that we haven't necessarily definitively linked to HPAI.

It tends to be those older, so second plus lactation, cows that are also later in lactation.

So 150 days of milk or later.

But that hasn't necessarily been tied to the four individuals that have tested positive for HPAI.

Dr. Luley, are you aware of any additional information on those individuals that had tested positive?

- [Dr. Luley] You have the same information that I have, Dr. Springer, nothing else to add.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

And it looks like we did just share the farm program biosecurity information.

So just another bit of information that you can go to for biosecurity resources for your farm.

Well, it looks like we have exhausted all the questions.

We'll give just another minute or two, in case any last minute questions come in.

But thank you very much for your attendance.

We hope that this has helped you kind of get a little bit better grasp on what is going on and we will continue to try and get information out as we learn more.

Another quick question, has there been fevers associated with this?

We do not have information related to that in terms of the HPAI positive animals.

In terms of the unknown illness that's been affecting cattle, some of those more severely affected animals, but not all of them have shown fevers.

There's also been a suggestion, some of them end up with kind of secondary infections like mastitis or respiratory disease, which could also play into that fever.

So it is not a consistent finding among sick animals, but it is something that has been noted among some of the sick animals.

Okay.

Well, thank you all for joining us today and keep an eye on those verified sources for more information.

We do expect to learn more as the days go by.

- [Dr. Luley] Dr. Springer, thank you again for a great presentation.

- Thank you, Dr. Luley for joining us.

We really appreciate your expertise as well.