OVINE Johne’s Disease vaccination should be compulsory for all breeding sheep and Merino wethers, a frustrated Victorian producer has proposed.
A Western District sheep producer who did not want to be identified because his property is surrounded by suspected OJD-infected flocks, believed the Assurance Based Credit (ABC) Scheme had failed to prevent OJD from spreading.
“Because if it was working we wouldn’t have the blow-out of Johne’s would we?”
OJD prevalence limits in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia have been exceeded for the past two years and were now under review.
“I think they have got to make vaccination compulsory for all sheep that were not terminal lambs, including Merino wethers.
“It (Pfizer’s Gudair vaccine) is $2 a head, but if everyone was to start using it the price has got to drop, just purely on the amount they would sell,” the producer said.
Flock owners who had sheep test positive for the wasting disease should be first on the compulsory vaccination list, he said.
“I think they should start vaccinating compulsorily as soon as they get picked up and I don’t think there should be a subsidy because if you get lice you don’t get a subsidy for that.
“I just think vaccination should be done right across the board because in 10 years everyone is going to be doing it anyway.”
The producer said privacy laws were a problem for farmers trying to find out their neighbour’s OJD status.
“If your neighbour has got OJD he is not obligated by law to tell you, only morally obligated.
“You will never have any idea whether your neighbour has ovine Johne’s disease or not.”
The producer’s farm borders three farmers whose flocks he had been told were “suspect” for the disease after positive OJD tests from abattoir testing.
One property owned by a sheep trader has been suspect for 10 years.
“I know they are suspect and that’s all I can ever find out,” the sheep producer said.
“The trouble is if I can go in through the Freedom of Information Act to find out, that information can only be given to me if those people agree – that is what I have been told.”
One neighbour regularly agisted sheep on surrounding farms after crops were harvested.
“Those farms would now have to be deemed suspect because they have had his sheep on them, but no-one will ever know they are suspect.”
The inability to find out the OJD status of a flock, lack of trace forward and trace back activities by authorities and poor take up of Gudair vaccination were all fuelling the continued spread of the disease, he said.
“It’s a contagious disease and the rate it is going there are going to be more people with flocks that are positive or suspect than there are people who haven’t got it.”
The producer has been vaccinating his sheep annually since 2000 but also protected his flock with electric fencing and a rifle.
“I’ve shot two sheep this year that came in from my neighbours but anything on the road disappears,” he said.
“That’s just the way it has to be.
“I’m a Western District farmer who has had a gutful.”
The producer said the Department of Primary Industries should still be doing traceback and trace forwards on infected sale sheep, but he believed it was relying on self-regulation.
Stock agents also needed to take more responsibility and use animal health statements to declare the OJD-status of sheep being offered for sale, he said.
“They are putting a lot of things through saleyards without actually looking too closely at the history of those sheep.
“I think the stock agents have to be held more accountable.”
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