The little-known bovine leukemia virus (BLV) infects most of America’s dairy herds. In a typical infected herd, over 40% of the cows have BLV. MSU assistant professors Melissa McKendree (of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics [AFRE]) and Tasia Taxis Kendrick (of Animal Science) are working to help herd owners manage the disease as profitably as possible.
BLV is a retrovirus that lives in the blood of cows. The blood-borne pathogen can be transferred whenever there is blood-to-blood contact between animals, such as when needles are reused. The disease is related to retroviruses of other mammals, including HIV in humans. BLV can cause enzootic bovine leukosis, which can cause a cancer of the lymphatic tissue.
“BLV lives in the B-Cells in the blood, and it hides,” Kendrick says. “I call it the silent killer because you won’t know the animal has it, but it’s living in the B-Cells that are related to the immune system. Which, in turn, leads to a compromised immune system where farmers are treating other ailments without knowing that BLV is the underlying cause.”
Dairy farmers have asked the research team two questions: Where is the virus coming from, and What is the impact on cost? Kendrick’s research tackles the first question. McKendree’s research tackles the second one.
For the past two years, McKendree and her master’s student, Drew Frommelt, have been analyzing farm financial records to understand how BLV infection affects farm milk revenue, drug costs, and the success rate of breeding attempts to determine how BLV affects cow profitability.
“The impact of our research is that we will have an estimate, on a per cow basis, of how a producer’s bottom dollar is impacted by a cow with or without BLV,” McKendree explained. “The outputs from our models will be used to develop a decision tool, which will allow producers to enter their own farm data and see how their farm will be impacted over the course of 10 years.”
Source: msu.edu
Photo Credit: USDA
Categories: Michigan, Livestock