Clinical

Figure 3. Correct milking machine settings and parlour routine play an important role in the control of contagious mastitis. Animals should be milked in relative risk order, with younger animals milked first, and older, known infected animals last, after which the clusters should be disinfected. Post-milking teat dipping will also aid in control of spread of contagious mastitis.

Control of mastitis in dairy sheep and goats

The annual incidence of clinical mastitis in dairy sheep and goats is estimated to be around 5% (Contreras et al, 2007). This is much lower than the 13–40% incidence of dairy cattle (Jamali et al,...

Managing BVDV at the herd level part 2

Bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) is a costly disease and its eradication is the focus of the English voluntary scheme, BVDFree. The process of identifying a farm as negative or not negative is...

Lameness in dairy heifers: a narrative review of control strategies

A descriptive review of the literature was conducted using the Cattle Lameness Literature database (www.cattle-lameness.org.uk), the RCVS library Discovery database, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar....

Figure 1. Jaundice visible in conjunctiva of a sheep with subacute copper poisoning.

Copper poisoning in sheep

Acute copper poisoning usually leads to sudden death with a very jaundiced carcass with gun metal kidneys and a bronze coloured liver on post-mortem. If the animal survives long enough to develop...

Figure 3. Old dung pat overturned by birds showing insect tunnels in the faeces and loss of herbage underneath through smothering.

Environmental risk assessment of veterinary parasiticides used in cattle

The purpose of this article is to provide a brief summary of developments over the >30 years since these initial results were published, with emphasis on what is applicable to the UK and Ireland....

Figure 1. Mastitis event data reported to on farm software allows easy extraction and regular monitoring as part of routine visits.

Responding to questions about clinical mastitis treatment failure on farm: improving the outcome

When challenged about apparent CM treatment failure on farm, it is important to first establish what ‘type’ of CM cases the client is treating — are these first clinical cases in lactation, recurrent...

Figure 1. Caseonecrotic pneumonia, one of the more classical pathologies associated with Mycoplasma bovis infection.

Mycoplasma bovis, thoughts on diseases, treatments, control and prevention

Some of the organism's characteristics have a direct effect on antibiotic treatment choices. As the organism has no cell wall B lactam antibiotics are ineffective. The organism does not synthesise...

Figure 1. Smallholdings often run goats with other susceptible species.

Iceberg diseases in uk goats

Lentivirus is a genus of retroviruses in the family Retroviridae, that causes a group of slowly developing insidious conditions such as CAE and maedi visna (MV) of sheep, the two diseases often...

Figure 3. Early detection of the signs of BRD in young calves requires a commitment from farmers to conduct regular monitoring and scoring, using an appropriate scoring system.

Early detection and treatment for bovine respiratory disease

As for many diseases, the accurate and early diagnosis of BRD is a critical step in the implementation of effective therapeutics. The variability in how animals respond to the disease, along with...

Figure 4. Example illustration from the author's bovine viral diarrhoea virus teaching for farmers.

Managing BVDV at the herd level part 1

The first step in assessing a herd is to identify the risk of current infection by evaluating biosecurity and management. Primarily, this should focus on incoming stock (purchased animals and existing...

Figure 1. Housed youngstock.

Parasitic control at housing in cattle: a modern rationale

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board's (AHDB) (2020) parasite control guide provides all anthelmintic preparations currently available for cattle. Anthelmintic classes available include...

Figure 8. Design of size, straps and buckles is important.

Calf jackets: a review of science and practice

There have been a relatively small number of published trials carried out on commercial farms or research facilities in the UK. The basic data presented in these trials are summarised in Table 2....