Farmers underutilising RVL testing to diagnose abortion causes
Treat every abortion in your ewe flock as the start of an abortion storm. That was a key message delivered by Teagasc Head of Sheep Knowledge Transfer, Michael Gottstein when appearing on a recent Let’s Talk Sheep Webinar.
The webinar, available to view below and also featuring Teagasc Sheep Specialists, Ciaran Lynch and Damian Costello, shared practical tips to make lambing easier.
Costly, labour intensive and stressful when occurring at farm level, Michael Gottstein strongly encouraged farmers to send samples to the Regional Veterinary Laboratory (RVL) when ewes abort on farm. Although <2% levels of abortion are a general occurrence on farm, his reasoning for sending samples early to the RVL was clear:
“The challenge is when you see the first ewe aborting, you don’t know whether that is just the odd ewe doing it or if it is the start of an abortion storm.
“Every abortion should be viewed as the start of an abortion storm and, at that stage, you should contact your vet and make arrangements to have the foetus and placenta sent into the lab for analysis,” Michael Gottstein explained.
The importance of diagnosis
In Ireland, he explained, less than 1% of aborted foetuses are submitted to RVLs for analysis annually. And, although fully cognisant that time pressures on farm may be contributing to this low uptake, the Teagasc Head of Sheep Knowledge Transfer noted that it could provide some valuable results as to the cause of the abortion.
“If the cause of the abortion can be identified early, sometimes there are steps that can be taken to limit the damage,” he added.
Although admitting that just 33% of the samples sent to RVLs actually yield results as to the cause of the abortion, doing so is one of the most effective ways of identify the causes early – allowing effective action to be taken to prevent it becoming a more severe challenge down the line.
“Not every sample you submit to the lab is going to give a result and that’s why it is important to keep submitting samples until you get a result,” he said, before adding:
“Often we meet a farmer where they have lots of abortions in his or her flock. They haven’t sent any samples to the lab and unfortunately at the end of lambing we are none the wiser as to what caused the abortion storm on that particular farm.
“For the coming year, and it is often in the second year when we start seeing a lot of abortions, a big effort is made to send foetuses to the lab and then we get a result that we could have done something about [if diagnosed earlier].”
Submitting samples to the lab
As it is not possible to diagnose the cause of abortions visually, Michael Gottstein encouraged farmers to engage with their local vet in order to organise the submission of samples to RVLs. However, he urged caution for those collecting samples.
“It is important that we submit fresh samples and the placenta to the nearest Regional Veterinary Lab.
“In terms of dealing with this type of material, it is dangerous to human health; some of the aborting agents can be contracted by humans.
“When we are dealing with aborting sheep or aborted material, it is very important that we are careful and wear protective gloves and clothing. We also need to be very careful about who and what that clothing comes in contact with afterwards,” he added.
Along with taking care when handling aborting sheep, Michael Gottstein advised farmers to isolate affected sheep until a diagnosis is confirmed.
“As some aborting agents – such as enzootic abortion – are transmitted via sheep to sheep, it is certainly a good idea to remove that ewe and the aborted material from the environment to try and isolate that particular infection so it doesn’t create more problems,” he added.
For further tips and advice, the full recording of the Let’s Talk Sheep Webinar is available to view below: