When it comes to cattle, disease prevention is vital due to the fact that beef is one of the largest food sources in the world. There are many different diseases that can affect bovine. Most of them can be treated, but not all. With new advances in medicine and technology, farmers and veterinarians now have the power to prevent these diseases from breaking out instead of waiting until their cattle are infected and dying. There are multiple ways farmers can avoid the initial infection and use effective methods to prevent diseases from infecting the rest of their herd.
Every disease advances differently and affects the animals in different ways. They all have a main symptom that is specific to the disease. This can be the first and biggest sign to most farmers that something is wrong with their animal. In raising any animal, including cattle, it is essential that you always pay close attention to their health and habits. The slightest behavioral changess in your animal could be the difference between life and death.
Diseases can be caused by bacteria, a virus, what they eat, their environment, or a number of other reasons. According to the University of Minnesota Extension, each disease is caused by a “causing agent”. This is just the name of the bacteria or virus, or what causes the disease.Some diseases however, are more common than others. A few of these include: Brucellosis, Leptospirosis, Listeriosis, Neosporosis, and Trichomoniasis.
Some of these diseases can cause a significant amount of damage to the infected animal. There are multiple diseases that can cause an abortion at a very early stage in the calf’s development. Some diseases cause symptoms to appear rather quickly, but others may not have symptoms that appear un...
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...ead through air or water contamination. Instead, the farmer should contact an incinerator, renderer, maggot farm, etc. These actions should be taken immediately after the animal expires.
There are multiple ways farmers can avoid the initial infection and use effective methods to prevent diseases from infecting the rest of their herd. Not all diseases can be prevented but most can. Technology is now available to help keep bovine from contracting these diseases instead of waiting until they are sick and then trying to treat them. This helps increase the overall health of the herd. Taking measures to prevent diseases is less time consuming and more effective than the later treatment of the disease. All commercial farmers should vaccinate against the diseases that have vaccinations available to help prevent the overall spread of diseases throughout the entire industry.
Makousky, David Tangley, Laura Loeb, Penny Holstein, William J. Thorton, Jeannye, "Hay feed might stop infections from meat." U.S. News & World Report 125.11(1998): middlesearchplus. EBSCO.web.27.Oct.2011
Normally, cows in Northern Europe in places such as Denmark live normal lives simply grazing on grass, and existing. However, there have been recent changes that have disrupted this normal activity. Generally the bluetongue virus (spread by Culicoides imicola, a biting midge) has been confined to Southern Europe and other places around the Mediterranean. But with the increase in temperature throughout the area, the midge has been allowed to migrate northward. This new pest is a nuisance and causes lots of difficulties to farmers in the area. When a cow contracts this disease, they usually also receive oral ulcers, salivation, stiffness, fever and eventually the inevitable- death (Merck Veterinary Manual NP). Because of the increase in temperature, midges have spread around the globe infecting livestock and creating terrible trouble for many farmers.
We should be concerned about the health of the animals that we are eating because if they are not consuming any healthy food we will not get our required nutrients. In the movie Food Inc. it shows how cows are only supposed to eat grass which is essential to them however we are now feeding them corn which makes the cows bigger and fatter faster than usual but there are many things wrong with it. This could cause Cows to raise the acid level this also creates existence for the dangerous disease E. Coli. E. Coli is a bacteria that is inside your intestines that helps you break down food. When cows are fed corn it also decreases the healthy acids such as Omega-3 and increases Omega-6 which is unhealthy. We should also care about their living conditions because a cow is in one area for most of the day just eating corn and when cows eat corn they tend to poop a lot. It is crowded in the eating area for cows so when they poop it falls on the ground and they eat so much corn that they just keep pooping so eventually they start stepping in it and this would cause them to get diseases. Some farmers when they slaughter them they do check for diseases but some don’t, so the diseases travel with the cow and onto your dinner plate which means that you could be eating an infected cow without knowing it. This could give you diseases and it could cause death. In Food Inc. they showed an example of a boy called Kevin who died because of consuming some unsanitary meat. He got E. Coli and died 12 days later. This proves that this should not be taken lightly because many people die from diseases similar to this one.
Another targeted areas of a cow with mad-cow disease is the spinal cord. The prions will also cause deterioration of the spinal cord. This is what cause paralyzation in some infected cows. The destruction of the spinal cord causes paralyzation because the prions deteriorate some of the nerves necessary for movement and feeling. Also, the spinal cord is linked so if prions devour one of those links, it would be similar to breaking the animal’s back.
Every beef cattle produced is injected with steroids. With the injection of steroids it makes the cow grow at an alarming rate, and helps turn food into muscle at a quicker rate. But this is the obvious information. What are they putting into both dairy cattle and beef cattle that could cause harm to us? There is a harmful hormone called IGF. Now, this hormone is not directly put into the cattle. But, all cattle are given rBGH (to put simply it helps them produce more milk/meat). But, rBGH is directly linked to IGF, a hormone that mimics the effects of the growth of human hormones in dangerous ways. It is said that cattle containing rBGH produce 10 times to IGF than cattle without rBGH. “In a 2004 study, patients with above-average IGF levels had nearly a 50% higher risk of prostate cancer and a 65% higher risk of hormone-dependent premenopausal breast cancer than people with below-average levels.” says Carina Storrs of Health.com. Also, a lot of cattle are dosed with high amounts of antibiotics, like penicillin. It is said that a lot of the antibiotics that humans use become ineffective from being exposed to antibiotic resistant bacteria from eating beef! These are just a few of MANY drugs put into cattle. Do you see how consuming high amounts of beef could be harmful to
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or Mad Cow Disease (BSE), degenerative brain disorder of cattle. Symptoms in cows include loss of coordination and a typical staggering gait. Affected animals also show signs of senility, for example, lack of interest in their surroundings, the abandonment of routine habits, disinterest in feed and water, or unpredictable behavior. Affected cattle show symptoms when they are three to ten years old.
BSE has been seen to progress very slowly in relation to other diseases, however is very contagious and fatal for not only cattle, but humans as well. While many diseases that are transmittable from animals to humans will affect the young or older humans, the median age of those infected with Mad Cow Disease is 26 (2). BSE has been linked to a fatal brain disease in humans referred to as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or vCJD. Eating meat from an infected cow is what many presume to be the cause of vCJD in humans (3). Symptoms include movement deficits, memory disturbances and cognitive impairments, all of which lead to an eventual death. The majority of the BSE cases reported have primarily been outside of the United States; from 2003 to 2012 23 cases were identified in North America, 4 of which in the United States (1). This may seem to be a small amount, however because it is believed to be transmitted through the meat of cattle it can be extremely dangerous and be shipped all over the United States before it is ever identified.
Every disease has a causative agent. This agent is a harmful bacterium that causes the disease. The causative agent for this disease is the bacteria Borrelia burgdoferi.
However, health concerned organizations want to ban the use of these products due to the increasing fears that they can cause harm to the consumers. For over 50 years, antibiotics have been added to the food of animals such as poultry, cattle and pigs. The main purpose for doing so is to lower the risk of disease in animals. Farm animals are housed together in overcrowded areas, which are very dirty. The hygiene level can get to such a poor state that they are often in contact with their own excreta as well as excreta of the other animals they are housed with and because of tight single air space they share, the likelihood of catching diseases from one another is further increased and very often a whole heard can be infected at one time.
Throughout history many different diseases have infected the world. Such diseases consist of measles, mumps, malaria, typhus and yellow fever. Many of these diseases are caused by different things and originated in different countries.
Such products include vaccines, medications, and antibiotics to support healthy and consistent herds of beef producing cattle. It segments the market into three distinct categories. Hobbyists herd less than 100 cows; Traditionalists commonly carry between 100 to 499, and businesses are working with 500 or more. (Mohr, 1999) Time spent in the field with the ranchers was allocated based on the volume of product purchased by each individual.
However, scientist have begun to find that farm animals such as chickens have bacteria in their food that has resisted even the strongest antibiotics. This is extremely worrying because animals such as chickens, cows and pigs are consumed by people. Which means that if the animals is infected, the infection can pass to the human population. For now these bacterias are harmless but the problem still remains; what would happen if out animal food supply is infected and we are unable to cure it?
Blowey, R. W. (1990). A Veterinary Book for Dairy Farmer (Third ed.). Old Pont Publishing Ltd.
It is estimated that over one-half of the antibiotics in the U.S. are used in food animal production. The overuse of antimicrobials in food animal production is an under-appreciated problem. In both human and veterinary medicine, the risk of developing resistance rises each time bacteria are exposed to antimicrobials. Resistance opens the door to treatment failure for even the most common pathogens and leads to an increasing number of infections. The mounting evidence of the relationship between antimicrobial use in animal husbandry and the increase in bacterial resistance in humans has prompted several reviews of agricultural practices by scientific authorities in a number of countries, including the US.
According to Health and Safety executive (HSE), (n.d), heat stress is a component of climate change “that causes the body temperature to fail”, and is a global problem which affects agriculture and livestock. The effect of heat stress on Livestock’s has become greater for animals such as dairy cows and beef cattle. When animals are under distress due to temperature rise, they usually cut back on their feeding practices; have a rise in body temperature and faces weight loss. Milk production, milk fat, protein content and the progression of breeding are also affected, especially in dairy cows. When heat stress occurs, dairy cow...