Farm-based blood test helps pinpoint immune status
The test identifies calves with failure of passive immune transfer, plus compromised health.
By Bruce Derksen
Cattle production places variable stressors on livestock often challenging immune systems to the breaking point. When unable to withstand these challenges, morbidities increase, workloads rise, drug use skyrockets and mortalities mount.
Immune systems are attacked from all angles
Producers spend countless hours monitoring their cow herds during calving season ensuring optimal welfare conditions. They complete regular checks to confirm calves are born safely and nurse quickly. Unfortunately, regardless of the level of care and attention, it’s often impossible to determine if newborns consume enough colostrum for the optimal passive transfer of immunity.
Likewise, weaning, transportation, infections, and heat stress compromise health inviting disease. While low-stress handling practices reduce anxiety, cattle are prey animals, and immune challenges are unavoidable. New diets, sorting, loading, comingling, heat stress, and transporting, all burden immune systems.
Diseases can be largely held at bay when all the pieces fall neatly into place, but cattle producers know these best-case scenarios are usually short-lived. And while experienced pen riders are adept at identifying and detecting illness early, even the most skilled can’t spot sickness before clinical signs appear.
Rapid blood test supports management decisions
Technology is helping address these issues.
Nano Discovery Inc., a Florida-based biotechnology company recently developed the D2Dx, a one-minute, farm-based blood test to determine immune health status. Already used for companion animals, the company is currently wrapping up major U.S. beef and dairy trials with the goal of marketing to North American cattle operations by the end of 2024.
“The D2Dx test measures how well an animal responds to a pathogen’s influence,” says Dr. Qun Huo, Ph.D., and company founder. “So many harmful bugs affect livestock, and each animal has a different immunity strength. Our test determines those strengths for producers to act upon.”
Huo says the test identifies calves with failure of passive immune transfer, plus compromised health. Results deliver information for better-informed treatment, management, and nutrition decisions.
The rapid blood test is done by first drawing a small amount of blood, usually from the tail or jugular vein. Replicated and safe reagent material mimicking a pathogen is mixed with the blood and a device generates a degree of immune health on a numbered scale.
“The test is a preventative measure,” Huo says. “For calves ranking lower, it allows time to make management and nutritional changes to support immunities. It’s also practical as it’s simple and done onsite without needing a lab.”
Beyond early sickness indications, the test also allows for less expensive drugs to be used which helps prevent antibiotic resistance.
After participating in a joint rapid blood test study, Dr. Sha Tao, Associate Professor in the Animal & Dairy Science Department at the University of Georgia said, “The D2Dx is a promising immune test to be used as a tool to evaluate passive immunity and predict calf mortality.”
Huo emphasizes, “Technology like our D2Dx immunity test is extremely important for the livestock industry. In today’s market, producers need to be able to make the best management decisions possible. We help them with that.”
Bruce Derksen is a freelancer out of Alberta, Canada
