The purpose of this study was to investigate the three-year incidence risk of various diseases of adult sheep and goats through on-farm herd health monitoring. The study was conducted, between April 1989 and March 1992, in three sheep and three goat herds with a rolling average total population of 704 adult animals. A system for on-farm data recording was established at the beginning of the stu...

Small ruminant post-mortem testing programs were initially designed for monitoring the prevalence of prion disease. They are now considered as a potential alternative to genetic selection for eradicating/controlling classical scrapie at population level. If such policy should be implemented, its success would be crucially dependent on the efficiency of the surveillance system used to identify i...

ANAPLASMOSIS was probably introduced into the United States by the Spaniards at the same time that splenic or cattle tick fever entered this country (IS),^ The disease, which is not transmissible to man, chiefly affects cattle, although the antelope, black wildebeest, blesbok, buffalo, camel, deer, duiker, elk, goat, and sheep are reported to be susceptible. Mature cattle are more subject to in...

The sequence variation in small ruminant lentiviruses from Brazilian herds of milking goats was sampled in a representative region of the pol gene and in a region including the entire tat open reading frame. Clones were amplified from cDNA derived from virus produced in vitro using primers targetting conserved sequences of the pol gene. Iterative sequencing of clones indicated that animals from...

Caprine arthritis/encephalitis (CAE) of goats and occasionally sheep are persistent virus infections caused by a lentivirus (CAEV). This viral infection results in arthritis in adult animals and encephalitis in kids. Prognosis for the encephalitic form is normally poor, with substantial economic loss for the farm. In this context an early/fast laboratory diagnosis for CAEV infection could be us...

The focus of this work is to determine the distribution and identify species of Eimeria parasites of dairy goats in the livestock of the National Goat and Sheep Research Center in Sobral, State of Ceará, Northeast Brazil. Results showed the presence of multiple species in 196 of 215 analyzed samples (91.2%). Fifty five out of these were from kids (28%) and 141 from adult goats (72%). Eight diff...

The somatostatin protein plays a crucial role in the regulation of multiple biological functions, such as growth, fat deposition, and nutrient absorption in vertebrates. Polymorphisms in the somatostatin gene have been associated with growth traits in livestock species, including cattle and goat. In this study, we conducted complete molecular characterization of the somatostatin gene in Bubalus...

Background: Most leptospiral infections in sheep and goat are asymptomatic but may result in high fever, abortion, stillbirth, agalactiae. There is a different foraging behavior between sheep and goat that may cause the different prevalence of Leptospira interrogans infection in sheep and goats. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of the present study was to compare the prevalence of L. interrogans antibod...

Johne's disease is an infectious chronic inflammatory bowel disease in ruminants. The key factor for the management of this disease is an early positive diagnosis. Unfortunately, most diagnostics detect animals with Johne's disease in the clinical stage with positive serology and/or positive fecal cultures. However, for effective management of the disease within herds, it is important to detect...