CLAW LESIONS AND POOR REPRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE IN SOW.

A research institute at the Leipzig University, Germany captures all pig movement on camera to follow and analyse every step ,It is interesting to understand how pig claws interact with hard surfaces technically unknown to them. Sows in modern intensive housing environments face substantial threats from claw lesions. The risk of the claw developing a painful and ultimately devastating lesion is based on its interaction with the flooring surface, overcrowded conditions and aggressive social behavior. The majority of claw lesions have a strong bio-mechanical component in their development . The Mechanical impact is either the direct /primary cause of lesions or promotes the progression of a lesion caused primarily by other factors such as metabolic disorders, mineral deficiencies/imbalances or local inflammation. The most critical factors contributing to the development of claw lesions in swine operations today are hard flooring systems. The pig's foot is anatomically designed for a soft, variable, uneven surface where weight bearing by the two main claws is significantly supported by weight bearing of the two dew claws. When the pig is placed on concrete, the mechanics of the foot and how it interacts with the flooring surface is changed totally. The result is increased production of horn of inferior quality, disruption of normal horn formation or mechanical damage to the tissue and subsequent inflammation. Once a sow experiences lameness and pain due to a claw lesion, her performance including her reproductive potential is severely compromised and she may be removed from the herd. Research studies show that genetic improvement and management techniques, swine producers have the opportunity to reduce, and even prevent, the painful claw lesions that decrease not only productivity of sows but also their well-being. Materials from;Christoph Mülling Professor of Veterinary Anatomy, University of Leipzig, Germany.

AGRIBUSINESS: NUTRITIONAL DIARRHEA IN PIGLETS.

AGRIBUSINESS: NUTRITIONAL DIARRHEA IN PIGLETS. Pathogenic diarrhea are quite common and are often confused with non-pathogenic secretory diarrhea. The non-pathogenic diarrhea are caused by wrong feed formulation and feed presentation.This can easily be avoided by correct feed formulation. AGRIBUSINESS: NUTRITIONAL DIARRHEA IN PIGLETS. Pathogenic diarrhea is the most common cause of depressed performance in recently weaned piglets. The nutritional diarrhea often lead to secondary complications through pathogenic agents such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella. These are identified by proper diagnostics, require veterinary intervention to cure symptoms and eliminate the source of offending microorganisms. Nutritional diarrhea usually follow pathogenic complications, thus a combination of nutritional and medical interventions is required. Nutritional diarrhea originate from three main areas in the feeding program: 1) palatability of feed; feed that fail to initiate vigorous intake immediately post-weaning will cause hunger, this will be followed by over-eating when pigs finally associate dry feed with nourishment. The short-term starvation created is capable of reducing the digestive and immune functions of the gastrointestinal system. When the pigs over-eat after a period of malnutrition, the digestion is incomplete, resulting in excess amounts of energy and protein available for proliferation of opportunistic pathogenic microorganism such as Escherichia coli or Salmonella. 2) feed quality; feed of low quality produced using second class ingredients.This will not only discourage the development of an early appetite, but their intrinsic low digestibility result in more undigested material becoming available for bacterial proliferation in the lower gastrointestinal tract. This is why a high quality diet is essential for a successful weaning. 3)feed stuff component such as soybean meal contain anti-nutritional factors that may cause gastrointestinal inflammation. This if combined with low-feed intake and excess undigested feed will result in nutritional diarrhea.

COPPER SULPHATE AND ANTIBIOTIC- FREE PIGLET DIET.

Copper sulphate is an old additive that has received renewed interest with the ban of zinc oxide and antibiotics. Long before the advent of zinc oxide, another mineral used to dominate piglet feeds: copper sulphate. It was known to reduce or prevent piglet diarrhea and, as such, it improved animal growth rate and feed efficiency. when the need to rotate antibiotics from batch to batch was necessary, copper sulphate remained a constant addition to even the simplest corn-soybean meal-type diets. With the introduction of zinc oxide, the effects of copper sulphate appeared to wane, but it never completely left the scene, mostly because it is very inexpensive. Supplementing piglet diets with high dosages of zinc oxide is under pressure worldwide. The European Union which has imposed an otherwise restrictive feed legislation, it is common practice to add pharmacological doses of zinc oxide, but only under veterinary prescription.( WATTAgnet.com) Even in the U.S., this ingredient is under scrutiny, along with growth-promoting antibiotics. Luckily, long experiences in the EU have demonstrated that we can replace both antibiotics and high dosages of zinc oxide. This is done through feed reformulation and the use of alternative additives. One of those is, naturally, copper sulphate; old technology at the rescue due to new regulations! Using just a bit of copper sulphate to be sure is not going to harm animals, but it is not going to help them either. Going back to original research, we need 250 ppm to get the full result, and at least 150 ppm to start seeing an effect. And, if we accept the hypothesis of copper sulphate being a bactericide, then we need the highest possible dosage exactly when pathogen pressure is highest. .

NEWCASTLE DISEASE OUTBREAK

The National Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Authority of Romania reported to the OIE on April 4 that the Newcastle disease situation in the country has been resolved. There was only one confirmed case in Romania, as a layer flock of 1,582 hens in Bucov, Prahova, Romania, was infected in November 2015. A total of 510 hens died, while the remaining 1,070 birds were destroyed. Movement control, zoning, screening and surveillance activities followed. The property was disinfected, animal products were destroyed and all carcasses, by-products and waste was properly disposed and source of infection was never determined. During the first two months of 2014, The Botswana Ministry of Agriculture notified the OIE of five cases of Newcastle disease, all of which occurred in the eastern half of the country. Three of those cases were in backyard poultry flocks. In total, 42,315 birds were susceptible, 3,966 were confirmed to have the disease, and 1,049 birds died. Contact with wild birds was believed to have been a cause for some of the infections. On March 30, the Ministry of Agriculture determined the Botswana Newcastle disease outbreak to be resolved, and notified the OIE on April 5. It has also been reported in Bulgaria, Bulgaria is just one of several countries that are dealing with Newcastle disease. The OIE states that, Israel has had seven outbreaks of the disease in recent months, affecting as many as 19,400 birds. The Philippines is also struggling with Newcastle disease, as the country’s Department of Agriculture is urging poultry owners to vaccinate their flocks amid the deaths of 41,000 birds. source;WattAgNet.com

HIV RESISTS CRISPR GENE EDITING.

A recent study shows that the HIV virus can overcome new efforts to defeat it using gene-cutting CRISPR technology and that the act of editing the virus's genome could even introduce mutations that help it resist future attacks . The method to tackle HIV using CRISPR have been popular since the rise of the technique, but recent studies have found that HIV quickly continued replicating even after being treated with the gene-cutting enzyme and that mutations introduced by the cutting process rendered new HIV cells unrecognisable to the enzyme. The research indicates that editing human genes to make HIV-resistant T cells would probably be more effective than directly editing the virus. Some researchers aim to edit genes made by the immune cells that HIV usually infects — called T helper cells — so that the virus cannot find a way in. Others take a different tack: equipping the T cells with gene-editing tools so that they can seek and destroy any HIV that infects them. When HIV infects a T cell, its genome is inserted into the cell’s DNA and hijacks its DNA-replicating machinery to churn out more copies of the virus. But a T cell equipped with a DNA-shearing enzyme called Cas9, together with customized pieces of RNA that guide the enzyme to a particular sequence in the HIV genome, could find, cut and cripple the invader’s genome. This seemed to work when a team led by virologist Chen Liang, at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, infected T cells that had been given the tools to incapacitate HIV. But two weeks later, Liang’s group saw that the T cells were pumping out copies of virus particles that had escaped the CRISPR attack. DNA sequencing revealed that the virus had developed mutations very near the sequence that CRISPR’s Cas9 enzyme had been programmed to cut. The team think that the problem can be surmounted, for instance by inactivating several essential HIV genes at once, or by using CRISPR in combination with HIV-attacking drugs. Gene-editing therapies that make T cells resistant to HIV invasion (by altering human, not viral, genes) would also be harder for the virus to overcome. A clinical trial is under way to test this approach using another gene-editing tool, zinc-finger nucleases. source;Nature news

VETERINARY OPHTHALMOLOGY.

South Texas Veterinary Ophthalmology staff members gathered to see the unique patients: a long-tailed macaque monkey and a ring-tailed lemur. Clad in scrubs of different hues, the intrigued staff members surrounded Dr. Andrew Greller as he examined Igor the monkey and Baraka, the lemur. The pair are residents of Primarily Primates, a sanctuary for abandoned and abused animals located in far West Bexar County. At the reserve, Igor kept bumping into things and sweeping his hands in front of him, as if he couldn’t see. A scattered row of warts, like erasers atop pencils, hung under his brow, possibly the source of the problem. For Baraka, the problem was a grape-sized growth jutting from the side of his left eye. After the 25-year-old macaque’s regular veterinarian, Dr. Valerie Kirk, sedated him at the veterinary opthalmologists’ office, Greller leaned over the mammal known in science terms as Macaca Fascicularis and snipped away the warts that caused the macaque’s eyes to droop. After using an indirect ophthalmoscope headset to look in the retina, Greller said Igor’s retina looked normal and the lack of sight could be a neurological issue. Most dogs that come to the office have advanced eye disease. The biggest challenge is having a comprehensive knowledge base on all of the different species presented, especially since they can’t tell me about their eye problems,” Greller said. The most challenging case to date came two years ago when he removed a porcupine quill from the back part of an English springer spaniel’s eye. He had to surgically cut eye muscles to remove the quill, but the dog still maintained a bit of vision after the operation. The obvious signs of eye problems are squinting, which can be a sign of pain; a bloodshot eye; or a foggy, blue eye. Greller‘s fascination with ophthalmology can be traced back to third grade. An ophthalmologist helped him when a classmate threw glitter into his eye. The specialist numbed his eye to take out the tiny bits to prevent permanent damage. Greller was marveling at his latest patient, lying on pads and folded towels. It was the first lemur he had ever treated. Under an intense beam of overhead light, Greller shaved fur from around the sedated lemur’s open, orange eyes with battery-operated clippers. “It’s a very cool retina,” he said, before cutting away the bulbous mass on the side of Baraka’s eye. Kirk sent the lid tumor off for analysis. “I’m pretty confident we got all of it,” Greller said. “It’s most likely a benign tumor.” source; NZ herald

ANTHRAX FOUND IN A PIG IN UKRAINE.

A backyard pig that was slaughtered in Chuguyiv, Ukraine, tested positive for the presence of anthrax. The State Veterinary and Phyto-sanitary Service of Ukraine, in a report submitted to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), stated that the pig’s owner had notified a veterinary officer that while he was slaughtering the pig three days earlier, he noticed the animal had an enlarged spleen. Pig had been slaughtered for consumption but no human illnesses resulted. Samples were taken from products from the animal, which tested positive for the presence of anthrax. No other animals were reported by the OIE as susceptible to anthrax. All people that had contact with products from the infected pig were evaluated by a physician, according to an April 6 report from the OIE, and none of those people were found to be infected. All of the products from the infected animal have since been destroyed. The incident marks the first time anthrax has been detected in the Ukraine since 2012, and the source of the latest infection remains uncertain. Control measures used include movement control inside the country, vaccination, disinfection, quarantine and surveillance outside the protection zone. OIE stated that it will submit weekly updates on the Ukrainian anthrax situation until it considers it to be resolved. The Ukrainian pig industry has also dealt with concerns of African swine fever (ASF) in recent weeks. The disease was found in a small backyard herd in Kirovograd, affecting 29 animals. source; WattAgnet.