Chat
12-18-2014, 10:14 PM
Dr. Tom Besser is conducting the study currently at WSU. Really nice guy and enjoyable to talk with. I have called and have spoken to him on two different occasions about his commingling of goats and Bighorn Sheep. Bottom line so far---- he is testing for a transmission of a bacteria called mycoplasma omnivorie or something like that. MOV for short. 
He told me that if the goat tests positive for MOV, it passes to the sheep. And if the ewes are pregnant, the lambs all die. If the goats test negative, the sheep experience no ill effects at all and show no transference of any bacteria, and hence, aren't getting pneumonia. So it sounds to me, so far, that if we can nasal swab test our goats to see if they test + or -, then take a health certificate in with us and make this requirement a part of the Best Management Practices that we wrote two years ago. All this is just talk for now, we will find out more info when the results are peer reviewed and published.
He told me that if the goat tests positive for MOV, it passes to the sheep. And if the ewes are pregnant, the lambs all die. If the goats test negative, the sheep experience no ill effects at all and show no transference of any bacteria, and hence, aren't getting pneumonia. So it sounds to me, so far, that if we can nasal swab test our goats to see if they test + or -, then take a health certificate in with us and make this requirement a part of the Best Management Practices that we wrote two years ago. All this is just talk for now, we will find out more info when the results are peer reviewed and published.