The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Other => Topic started by: Julie S on January 12, 2009, 09:23:00 pm
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I have loads of cats - and loads of sheep - and my neighbour (commercial farmer) always tells me sheep breeders should steer clear of cats because of the risk of toxoplasmosis.
Exactly how big a risk is this :-\ I have no intention of parting with either species but it does worry me a little....
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Do you cats have kittens? And do they live amongst your hay/straw?
Toxoplasmosis is passed on generally by the sheep eating hay that has been contaminated by infected cats- either by them having kittens amongst the bales of hay, or by their faeces in the hay. It depends if your cats are likely to be near the sheep's food. It can cause the sheep to abort.
We get our hay for the goats from a local farmer, who has several farm cats, and yes they do have kittens in the hay sometimes. We have never had a problem, although one goat did abort 2 years ago, and we had a panic in case it was that because it can spread right through a herd, but the placenta was tested by the vet and it wasn't toxoplasmosis thank god.
I have found a link that maybe explains it a bit better.
http://www.qmscotland.co.uk/analysis/downloads/Toxoplasma%20abortion%20in%20sheep.pdf
and another one from Moredun
http://foundation.mri.sari.ac.uk/disease-summaries.asp?ref=51
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis
you may have already read the above link . I only knew as much as you really , that there was a problem there. The link does make interesting reading though . I hope it helps somewhat... ::)
cheers
Russ
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Thank you both for your input - interesting links.
My cats do not have kittens - they are all neutered - but they do hunt and sleep amongst the hay. Having said that - they never appear to use the haybarn as a toilet and they definitely can't get into the feed bins. I guess there must be a risk from any faeces that are deposited in the fields - just wonder whether I am worrying unnecessarily :-\
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Can the sheep not be tested occasionally for this? and maybe the cats too? Or is the cost prohibitive?
Annie
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I don't know about testing but I would imagine it is possible. I would also imagine it would be expensive :(
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we had some sheep tested for toxo last autumn as we suspected (correctly) we had a problem with it. I think that intervet provided free tests for a random bunch in the flock to see if there was an infection.
Generous? Maybe, but remeber that they produce the main vaccine - Toxovax.
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Interesting.... can you remember how you organised this?
Have you vaccinated your sheep with Toxovax - if so when does it need to be done and is it an annual thing or a one-off?
I am just re-starting my flock on Heptavac P as I let it lapse a couple of years ago. Am a firm believer that prevention is better than cure....
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maybe i should start a new topic on this but i wanted to ask how you got on with heptivac p as a lot of people round here thought the extra p was too much for the ewes and possibly caused reactions such as abortion. we use covexin8 and were considering the change until we asked around
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I know a lot of people don't like to use the heptavac p, but we personally have never had any problems with it. We use it on the goats who sometimes do have an allergic reaction (but the most it causes is a lump on the vaccination site), and we used to use it on our sheep too when we had them.
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Thank you both for your input - interesting links.
My cats do not have kittens - they are all neutered - but they do hunt and sleep amongst the hay. Having said that - they never appear to use the haybarn as a toilet and they definitely can't get into the feed bins. I guess there must be a risk from any faeces that are deposited in the fields - just wonder whether I am worrying unnecessarily :-\
I wouldn't have thought you have a huge risk. One of the things I read last night stated that a farm shouldn't get rid of its established family of cats, because young cats are more likely to spread the disease. Therefore if you get rid of your cats, then it means that new young cats might move in and be more likely to bring the disease.
Beth
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I have always had a lot of cats - had 20 at one point - and have so far been lucky in that I've not had any probs. It's just one of those niggling little worries that comes to the fore every now and again - must be my age :(
Regarding Heptavac P - never had any problems with using it on the sheep other than abscesses occasionally forming at the injection site. I lost a ram with Pasteurella pneumonia several years ago and decided then that the extra "P" in the Heptavac was worth it....
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As far a the toxo test goes, we simply told the vet we thought we had a toxo problem and that we thought we should test them to confirm our diagnosis. He arranged all the rest. It is probably worth pointing out though that they are a predominantly large animal practice so are pretty good at this sort of thing. If your sheep are the only ones your vet ever sees, then it might be harder.
We ummed and ahhed about vaccinating - once exposed to Toxo, the sheep will have some resistance to it so in theory should not have a problem with it again. Still, as we only had six tested last year out of 160 odd, we decided to vaccinate. As this was the first year we vaccinated everything - rams included (toxo infection can seriously redice fertility and libido in tups). That should be the only vaccination they will need. So in future years we will only need to vaccinate the flock replacements.
HeptavacP - we use Heptavac P plus which is the one with tha pasteurella element included. We give all lambs an initial course (males included as we have had a pneumonia problem in the past) when the lambs are 12 weeks, and again 4 weeks later. After that all sheep get a booster in the spring, mid Feb usually - 4 weeks before lambing.
Well worth the expense - you might be lucky and go for years without vaccination with no problems, but you only have to have exposure to one of these bugs to decimate your flocks. Besides, I have tetanus protection - so should my sheep.
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Thanks VSS - this is very useful.
I always worry that once one of these bugs gets into the flock (and into the soil) it can be impossible to eliminate. I had a ewe abort 2 or 3 years ago - well, she aborted and then had a live lamb several weeks later. At that point I began to fret about stuff like toxo etc but the following year there were no probs and this year was also trouble-free apart from an orf outbreak which I could have done without.....
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re Heptavac, interested to read of possible problems with abortion, we have just had a ewe abort 2 lambs a week after being vaccinated, the lambs having been dead for several days when they were aborted, I wasn't aware of this problem, and we havn't seen any reactions in ewes before or abortions in our flock (have occassionally seen bad Heptavac reactions in lambs though ), so am now wondering if there is a link.
Everything has been sent off to the VLA so will see whether they come back with an infection as the cause, do you have any more info about this Hexhammeasure? We should probably contact Intervet if they come back with no infection, will ask our vet, although he generally doesn't seem keen to report isolated incidents in a flock. Was also wondering if this could be due to toxoplasmosis, we only have one 4yr old cat, however our neighbour collects waifs and strays and we sometimes see them in our barns, will hopefully know more next week, and hoping that this is an isolated incident. Otherwise the ewe has not looked off colour, been eating etc, just a bit quiet for a day following the abortion, she is now in isolation with a wether for company.
VSS - re heptavac P for lambs, you say you vaccinate at 12 weeks old is that because cover is provided by maternal antibodies? The directions say to vaccinate at 3 weeks old, but it was a small group of 3 week old lambs that we had react, and I am wondering how long it is safe to leave doing the lambs for if the ewes have been vaccinated a month prior to lambing?
thank you for any advice/help
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You can vaccinate lambs any time from 8 weeks old. I woudn't vaccinate them as early as 3 weeks. The point is their immune system isn't properly developed until they are 8 weeks. Its the same for any animal, dogs and even human babies get their first vaccines at 8 weeks.
I haven't hear of heptavac causing abortion before- certainly we've never had any problems, but then its always low numbers of goats and sheep we ever did. Having lost goats kids at 4 weeks old to tetanus (which was awful), I always recommend vaccinating. These kids hadn't had their mothers vaccinated before kidding because the owner didn't do it the time. She vaccinated the following year though...
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I don't have any more information other than rumours. around here its a case of 50percent useing covexin8 and the rest using heptevac. as for aborting ewes there are so many different causes I sometimes wonder how any sheep survive!!
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We had some trouble with dogs chasing our sheep a last year (none killed) & then had severe losses from toxoplasmosis. Is there any relationship between stress in sheep and their suseptibility to toxoplasmosis, or is it just a matter that if they get the cysts, that's it?
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Stress in sheep can cause them to abort, but wouldn't necessarily cause toxoplasmosis. How soon after they were chased did they abort?
We once lost a goat after kidding, and our vet wanted us to sue our next door neighbours, as she had been stressed because they had been scrambling on their motorbikes all day the day before she kidded.
Beth