Ovine Johne's Disease: Chronic Welfare Impact

Overview: Welfare analysis of paratuberculosis in sheep, a chronic progressive disease causing significant long-term suffering.

Key Welfare Facts

Ovine Johne's disease causes progressive weight loss, diarrhoea, and weakness over months of deterioration.
The disease is caused by Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis infecting the small intestinal wall in early life.
Animals may be infected as lambs but not show clinical signs until 2-5 years of age in most cases.
Clinical animals require humane culling as there is no effective treatment, and they shed bacteria copiously.
Vaccination reduces the number of clinical cases but does not prevent infection in a flock.
National control programmes using blood testing and vaccination reduce within-flock prevalence over years.

Welfare Assessment

Johne's disease causes prolonged welfare suffering in clinical animals. Prompt culling of clinical cases combined with participation in national control programmes reduces disease burden and prevents the extended suffering of inadequately managed clinical disease.

What You Can Do

Cull clinically affected sheep promptly to prevent prolonged suffering and environmental contamination
Participate in national Johne's control programmes including testing and vaccination protocols
Implement colostrum management to reduce calf-to-lamb transmission of the organism
Work with your vet to develop a herd risk assessment and implement appropriate control measures