WKU Agriculture Department To
Conduct Cattle Research

January 22, 2004

Bowling Green, Ky. - The Western Kentucky University Department of Agriculture will share in a $61,400 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for research on control of Mycobacterium paratuberculosis in cattle.

Mycobacterium paratuberculosis, known commonly as Johne's disease, is an insidious disease that causes chronic diarrhea in older cattle for which there is no treatment. The WKU dairy herd will be used to demonstrate practices to prevent spread of the disease within a herd and will lead to eradication of the disease from a herd.

The research uses blood testing and fecal culture to identify infected animals, which are culled from infected herds. The research will also demonstrate the use of segregation and changed nutrition of newborns and young stock to prevent infections in those animals.

Western will be working with the Kentucky Department of Agriculture and the State Veterinarian's office to complete this federally funded project.

For more information, contact Jenks Britt at (270) 745-3151. More WKU news is available on the World Wide Web at www.wku.edu. If you'd like to receive WKU news via E-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.

-WKU-