Trich for Resilient Rancher

By Katrina Huffstutler

One cattleman's tale of fighting a devastating outbreak head-on

2007 was a good year to be a rancher in South Texas. Record rainfalls meant an abundance of lush, green grass. Calves had every advantage to grow and cows had every advantage to breed.

So when Frank Helvey, who was accustomed to a 95 percent conception rate, had 400 of 600 cows come up empty during preg-checking that year, he knew something was terribly wrong.

The cattleman, who ranches in Floresville, Hondo, Bigfoot and Pearsall, and is the owner/manager of
Pearsall Livestock Auction, says the open cows appeared healthy and were in the prime of their lives. Most were 3-year-olds coming with their second or third calf.

"We couldn't figure out why they were all open," says Helvey, a former president of the Livestock Marketing Association of Texas and member of Texas Animal Health Commission's trich working group. "We started testing our cattle for everything. We even went to [Texas] A&M and they couldn't find anything. We had never thought much about trich — and that was our own fault. But eventually we started thinking it might be."

Sure enough, it was. Helvey says 16 bulls came up trich positive.

One powerful protozoa
Trich, short for trichomoniasis, is caused by the protozoa Tritrichomona foetus and causes cows to
abort and become temporarily infertile. The venereal disease is carried by bulls and transmitted to
cows through breeding.

Its mysterious nature, coupled with its symptoms being so similar to a handful of other reproductive diseases, makes trich a challenge to detect.

Since infected bulls show no outward signs of trich, a culture sample test is the only way to identify the disease's presence.

And the disease doesn't stop at being mysterious and highly contagious — it's one of the most costly affecting beef cattle herds. Extended breeding seasons, dramatically reduced calving rates and unwanted culling costs U.S. producers more than $100 million each year, according to the online Beef Cattle Handbook by Extension veterinarians Dr. Donald Hansen of Oregon State University, and Dr. William Kvasnika of the University of Nebraska.

‘Got at it and stayed after it'
Helvey estimates his herd's trich outbreak in 2007 cost him between $400,000 and $500,000.

"It was a tremendous loss," he says. "It was a really tough time and something that would've hurt anybody in this business. But we didn't sit back on our laurels. We got after it and stayed after it, and I believe we got it out of our herd by 100 percent."

Helvey did his research, calling veterinarians all across the Western U.S., where the disease is most prevalent. He says he got some different stories and different answers, but was able to put together a plan to get trich out of his herd — and keep it out for good.

He started by testing all of his bulls, and isolating them from his cow herd for 4 months. They culled open cows, culled trich-positive bulls and gave lots of vaccinations.

"We got real hard and heavy on them," Helvey says. "We wouldn't buy a bull unless he'd tested negative for trich. Not many people had heard much about trich at that time and they thought we'd lost our minds. But they soon found out what I was talking about and that it was no longer just a western states problem."

He says a lot of people didn't take trich seriously for many years, but were focused on other potential herd health problems.

"I just know it did us a lot more harm than brucellosis ever did," he says. "I never lost a calf to brucellosis that I know of. But I lost about 400 of them in one breeding season to trich."

He speaks candidly and passionately about the disease that cost him nearly half a million dollars in a few months, and says he's happy to advise others on how to get rid of or prevent trich.

"We've got a lot of friends and business associates down here that got on the bandwagon with us and have done the same things we've done and got it out of their herds. Our good friends and customers don't have any problems with trich now, either. It takes a lot of management, but it can be done," Helvey says.

He advises producers to test, test and test again. And when the need arises, cull them without hesitation.

"If you have a real bad breed-up, test your bulls. If you buy a bull, I don't care if he's barely 15 months old — test him. If he's ready for service, test him for trich. And watch your cows. Any cows that don't breed get culled. That's the No. 1 way to get trich out of your herd — testing and culling. These management practices work," Helvey says.

Thanks to the 2007 incident, he got ahead of the curve on trich prevention both on his cattle operations and in his auction market, which became the first Texas market to require bulls to be trich tested.

He was glad it didn't take others long to follow suit and is especially proud of the rules made in Austin when cattle industry and trade associations (including Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association) came together and encouraged the Texas Animal Health Commission to develop regulations to stop the introduction and spread of trich.

According to the commission's website, "… trichomoniasis regulations were developed with a working group of producers, market operators, veterinarians, laboratory representatives and educators. Under the program that was phased in beginning April 2009, trichomoniasis is a reportable disease in Texas. This allows disease information to be collected regarding where and how much infection exists in the state. The program will be reviewed annually by the trichomoniasis review working group."

Due to the extreme budget cuts the organization faced this year, Helvey says Texas Animal Health Commission isn't able to do much further work on trich right now, but he hopes other entities will continue to do research, adding that there's still a lot we don't know about trich yet.

"I don't know what we've got to do to find a cure," Helvey says, "but I do know one thing — we need to continue to test 'em and kill 'em."