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Poulsen says lab ready for Wisconsin milk testing

A research veterinarian says Wisconsin’s Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory is ready for the state’s H5N1 milk testing.

Dr. Keith Poulsen tells Brownfield individual farms will be tested but farmers will not have to do anything extra to have their milk tested. “It’s really not going to change your day-to-day business, or the milk haulers for that matter. Not all states are like that. Everyone is doing something just a little bit different. Wisconsin decided to use the model that Minnesota used. We just had to make it much bigger for our state.”

Poulsen says ten labs handle milk quality testing for the state’s 54-hundred dairy farms, and a portion of those samples will be sent to the diagnostic lab for the H5N1 test. “We actually send them the tubes that we want that are pre-labeled. Everything is very high throughput, and we want to make sure that it’s done with a, it’s a highly-complex test that’s done with a very high quality and it can get done fast.”

Poulsen says his lab will likely receive samples Tuesday through Friday each week and have test results from those samples the same day in most cases.

Poulsen says along with increasing biosecurity measures on the farm, he recommends producers work with their herd veterinarian to develop a plan outlining what they will do if there is an H5N1 detection on their farm.

AUDIO: Dr. Keith Poulsen discusses the Wisconsin milk testing plan and why he believes show animal testing should continue under current guidelines with Brownfield’s Larry Lee