Johne’s Disease Tracker tool in InterHerd+

The Johne’s Disease (JD) Tracker, which was developed with support from the National Action Group on Johne’s, was launched in July 2021. The JD Tracker application calculates a variety of outcome measures and drivers: so-called ‘JD parameters.’ The JD Tracker presents key data enabling farmers, vets and advisors to monitor their herd’s JD situation in relation to their peers, and to support informed discussion to identify areas for improvement requiring management interventions, and to register impact of such interventions. The JD Tracker calculations can be made with data from individual herds or pooled data from multiple herds, enabling progress and monitoring of an individual herd, or multiple herds within veterinary practices, milk pools or milk suppliers.

Key parameters include;

• Average test value: Indicates the overall level of JD in the herd
• POS >=30 / 60 / 100: The proportions of tests that are positive, above increasing test values. Measures of JD prevalence
• J4: The identification of cows which are newly positive for JD
• J5: A measures of JD persistence in the herd
• Priority Culls: The identification of cows which are likely to be transmitting JD
• J5 service and exit: A measure of your management response to JD

Using the Johne’s Disease tracker within InterHerd+: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=053bxzz_H7I&t=29s

Action Group on Johne’s

PAN Livestock Services Ltd have been involved with Action Group on Johne’s (AGJ) since 2018. Dr James Hanks, Nick Taylor MRCVS and Dr Emma Taylor are members of both the management and technical groups.

Previous work for AGJ include the development of the 30-cow screen milk ELISA test, production of the JD tracker application (which is available in InterHerd+ and other web-based environments) and annual progress reports based on a group of herds regularly used for benchmarking. More recently, PAN Livestock Services Ltd has setup the National JD Tracker Database and is supporting the development of Phase 3 of the National Johne’s Management Plan.

Welcome – The National Action Group on Johne’s (actionjohnesuk.org)

National JD Tracker Database

The National JD Tracker Database was established in Autumn 2023. It is the result of a collaboration between Dairy UK, PAN Livestock Services Ltd, National Milk Records (NMR) and Cattle Information Service (CIS). The National JD Tracker Database is an anonymised database containing milk recording and milk ELISA data for approximately 2,000 herds which milk record and JD test on a quarterly basis with NMR or CIS.

Research on the database is determined and directed by the Technical Group of the Action Group on Johne’s. Despite the infancy of the project, the database has already been used to examine national trends in JD tracker parameters from 2010 to 2022 and identified the demographics of herds to target in future research activities. The database will be an invaluable research tool whether for measuring progress in disease control, identifying new JD tracker parameters or answering numerous research questions relating to the JD.

Academic Publications

• Taylor-Holt EN, Strain S, Taylor NM, Williams S, Wheelhouse N, Hanks J, Orpin PG, Rose DC, Ekiri AB (2025) Utilising on-farm risk assessment data for the management of Johne’s Disease in dairy cattle in Northern Ireland. Preventative Veterinary Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2025.106538
• Taylor EN, Channa K, Orpin PG, Hanks J, Taylor NM (2024) Changes in the Johne’s Disease situation in GB dairy herds over 10 years, as revealed by regular milk ELISA data. Preventative Veterinary Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2024.106317
• Morrison R, Hanks R, Orpin PG, Strain S, Taylor EN, Rose DC (2024) Challenges for the management of Johne’s Disease in the UK: expectation management, space, ‘free riding’, and vet-farmer communication. Preventative Veterinary Medicine.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2024.106295
• Orpin PG, Sibley D, Hanks J, Taylor N (2022) The National Johne’s Management Plan: Using risk and data analysis to optimize Johne’s control in dairy herds. Livestock, doi: 10.12968/live.2022.27.1.24