Animal Health

What does animal health require?

vigilance for disease prevention/treatment, appropriate stewardship and numerous diseases can affect animals

What is a disease?

any state other than a state of complete health, the normal function of the body or some of its parts is changed or disturbed

What is a clinical sign?

what the animal exhibits that is different from the normal function including fever weight loss edema reduced performance

What is a lesion?

refers to changes in body organs, like size color shape or an organ including tumors and abscesses

What is pathology?

the study of essential nature of diseases

What is etiology?

refers to the cause of disease or the study of causes of disease

What is resistance?

natural defense system against a disease involving a number of factors, but some pathogens so destructive body has virtually no defense of any kind against them

What causes diseases?

usually caused by a combination of predisposing causes and direct causes

What are predisposing factors for disease?

stress factors like nutritional genetic environment and conformation based (obesity)

What are direct causes of diseases?

bacteria, viruses, protozoa, parasites, fungi, prions

What are infectious diseases?

caused by living organisms and have four requirements for perpetuation - pathogen must be able to gain entrance into body, once there must be able to adapt to host environment and multiply, must be able to exit host, must be able to infect another host

What terms describe the ability of an organism to cause disease?

pathogenicity and virulence

When is a disease contagious?

a disease that is transmitted readily from animal to animal or can be spread via a vector like mosquitos or ticks

What results in diseases directly from improperly balanced or improperly fed rations?

nutrient deficiency

What disease are caused directly by genetic makeup?

like hemophilia but this is different than genetic predisposition

What is an example of a direct cause of disease that is from traumatic injury?

hardware disease in cattle

What is a clinical severity of disease?

when clinical signs are present

What is subclinical severity of disease?

diseases don’t have readily observable clinical signs

What are acute diseases?

have sudden onset of clinical signs and short duration of illness

What are chronic diseases?

have symptoms that develop slowly over a period of weeks or even months

What is a diagnosis?

the process of determining the nature and severity of a disease the purpose is to identify the cause of the clinical signs that an animal is exhibiting so treatment can be devised also important for limiting disease transmission

What can diagnostic procedure include?

history of sick/dead animal and herd, clinical examination - TPR, palpation of body for swelling/abnormalities, rectal palpation to assess various internal organs or pregnancy, collection of specimens for testing, necropsy

What does the immune system include?

surface barriers, innate immune system, adaptive immunity, passive immunity, and active immunity

What are surface barriers?

skin and mucous membranes, linings of digestive and respiratory tracts coughing and sneezing

What is the innate immune system?

the first line of defense against infectious agents but does not provide specific long lasting protection against pathogens includes WBCs

What is adaptive immune system?

a specific and long term defense against previously encountered pathogens - antibodies important all maternal passive immunity is transfer of antibodies from animal to mother through colostrum or placenta

What is active immunity?

acquired by the animal on its own when antibodies are made by the animal’s own immune system

What do the demands of most types of animal production lend themselves the need for?

a coordinated herd or flock health management program

How is management important in herd health?

manager is responsible for making the separate parts of a herd health program work together as a whole

How is nutrition important to herd health?

improperly balanced and fed rations can be direct causes of diseases, poorly nourished animals either underfed or overfed are more vulnerable to both infectious and metabolic diseases

How is genetics important to herd health?

the elimination of genetic faults in animals should be a goal of any sound and complete health program, many tools and techniques available to eliminate genetic diseases like pedigree analysis test mating lab profiling DNA, like BLAD in holsteins or HYPP in horses or Arthrogryposis multiplex (curly calf) in angus cattle

What is BLAD?

bovine leukocyte adhesion deficiency which is a genetic condition that results in a deficiency of a protein that WBC need to fight off infections, calves appear normal at birth but clinical signs appear 1-2 wks, suffer from chronic pneumonia, enteritis, diarrhea, loss of teeth, delayed wound healing, stunted growth and recurring bacteria infections that cause premature death at 2-4 months

What is Hyperkalemic periodic paralysis?

inherited disease that causes muscles to contract more readily than normal due to excess K in blood, affected horses experience unpredictable attacks of muscle tremors, weakness, paralysis, and collapse DNA test available to confirm diagnosis only one copy of the mutation is needed to produce disease horses with two copies usually more severe

What is Arthrogyposis Multiplex in Angus cattle?

aka Curly Calf syndrome lethal genetic disorder that results in stillborn calves with bent and twisted spines has been identified in certain angus or angus cross cattle happens when small segment of DNA is missing prevents calf from getting critical protein for normal development in utero

How is prevention important for herd health?

small investments in time and money toward disease prevention save lots of money and reduce animal suffering, strategic preventive measures are planned well in advance of disease and based on variety of factors like weather parasite life cycles patterns of infection

What are the recommendations for starting and developing a herd health program?

consult a vet, detailed operational procedure and calendar, identify animals in permanent way and keep health records, choose animals to be added to herd from healthy vigorous stock, separate animals by characteristics like age, use all in all out when possible, balance properly mixed and fed rations, clean water, vaccinate for known issues, minimize number of people, observe animals frequently and regularly, make all reasonable attempts to discover what caused the death of any animal from the herd

How are animal disease and human well being related?

animal disease and farm income are strongly connected because diseases decrease income for operations that depend on production or profit from herd and death among livestock is easily measured loss that can be accounted for on an individual basis and greatest loss of all is loss of gain or satisfactory production

What is biosecurity?

management practices that prevent the introduction or spread of disease on the farm, refers to protecting livestock healthy by preventing transmission of diseases or contaminants that could jeopardize the operation’s animals, BSE, foot and mouth and avian flu raised awareness also agroterrorism