Battling Mad Cow Disease

I dont know this 100%, But i think that all cows coming in to this country have to be couritined ( spelling) for a period of time plus have to be under a certian age to allowed in.
THOMAS

There are ways of limiting your risk of exposure to BSE and other animal diseases when you assemble a herd.

When you buy cattle buy them from a local cow calf producer who has a closed herd or as closed a herd as one can get. That means that they maintain a well managed stock of breading cows and are very selective on where they acquire bulls or use AI. When you find some cow/calf operators like this ask questions as to the origin of the herd and where replacement stock comes from. Not just for BSE but for other purposes as well. Ask about their feed supply. If they use there own feeds then you will have less risk that they have added animal protein to the feeds which is the speculated source of the BSE problem in
England.

I don't think that they have determined that BSE is communicated from one animal to the other but rather they get the diseases because they are on the same diet.

The current thought is that the cattle under 30 months will not have the disease and over that they might show signs if they were exposed to the feeds with animal proteins. Most countries now ban the inclusion of animal proteins in ruminant feeds as a counter measure to the disease.

Be concerned about other diseases and conditions if the farmer you are buying from uses community pasture that is open to multiple herds. They usually catch just about everything that is out there.

You will usually find pockets of small producers who keep relatively closed and clean herds just bringing in bulls to put on their cows and heifers. If you get in with them they will be able to provide you with some good starter stock.

To keep the disease from spreading .... watch what you feed them.

Take care

Thank you so much heyhay..eh! That was such great information that it's put my mind at ease. I will definitely be asking lots of questions from now on and maybe looking into having a closed herd ourselves.

Mad Cow Disease has been discovered in the US. Given the fact that the USDA only tests one cow out of every 2,000, no one really knows how many of these infected animals may have already entered the human food supply.