Evaluation of environmental culture to determine herd status for Johne's disease on Atlantic Canadian dairy farms
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21423/aabppro20123895Keywords:
environmental culture, mycobacterium avium, small herd, dairy cattleAbstract
Environmental culture (EC) is a non-invasive and relatively inexpensive method to detect the presence of Mycobacterium avium subsp paratuberculosis (MAP) in a herd. Research into the test characteristics of EC has generally focused on large, MAP-positive herds. This study was designed to evaluate the test characteristics of EC within typical Atlantic Canadian dairy herds. These herds tend to be smaller in size than herds that have been used in previous EC studies. Furthermore, many of these herds were suspected to be test-negative or have low MAP prevalence.