Bovine Viral Diarrhoea .

Bovine Viral Diarrhoea is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus transmitted from infected animals. BVD is widespread amongst herds and many farmers are unaware of the virus circulating in their herds. The signs of infection vary and majorly include fertility problems such as abortions and birth defects, scour and reduced milk yield. Other less directly associated illnesses, due to the effects of infection on the animals’ immune response, include an increased incidence of other diseases such as pneumonia, lameness or mastitis within the herd. BVD is spread by nose-to-nose contact between infected cattle within the herd, mixing with infected animals from another farm, and during transportation. Cattle can also be infected indirectly by exposure to contaminated equipment, other ruminants especially sheep or by visitors to the farm. Bio security protocols are important to ensure safety of herd and prevent infection. The infection type could be persistent or transient,where the transient infection occurs any time after the animal is born and the persistent type occurs when a dam is infected with BVD for the first time during the first 4 months of pregnancy and the developing calf born is persistently infected with the virus and sheds high levels of virus thereby been a ready source of virus on the farm. The control measure is to test herd and remove carriers,vaccination is major key to a safe and clean herd. Vaccination of dams before breeding season is important.

Rare co-joined twin calves.

A Western Australian farmer was shocked to discover a set of Speckle Park conjoined twin calves had been born on his farm in Napier, on the state's south coast.It is unknown exactly how common conjoined twin calves are, however it is thought to be an incredibly rare occurrence known as 'parapagus'. The rare occurrence is expected to have been caused by an incomplete splitting of a single embryo, resulting in a set of twins "hung up" on each other. Esperance veterinarian and former president of the Australian Cattle Veterinarians Association, Dr Enoch Bergman, said it was unknown what caused an embryo to split, however it was expected to be genetic. There must be a couple of cells that didn't quite separate, and depending on where that happened they could have two heads, they could share a heart, they could have two hearts and four legs, it just depends on what's hung up. Dr Bergman said it was fairly common for a calf to be born with extra limbs, caused by a genetic disease called 'developmental duplication' or 'heteropagus twins'.Parapagus twins share the same pelvis, but have individual thoraxes, and front legs.Dr Bergman said he had never seen one split quite like this case. The cow is young and due to the size of the calves, and where they were joined, Dr Bergman believes they may have been delivered breech.He said it was "phenomenal" the mother was able to calve without help. source

Orange mucus in poultry dropping.

Orange mucus in dropping is an indication of damage to intestinal damage.This could be caused by malabsorption when birds are not fed regularly or when there is coccidiosis. The lining of the intestine can also be damaged if feed given is not easily digested,so ensure thee feed is not hard or coarse and give adequate water as well. Early detection of disease is an advantage that saves money and flock.The key to action is listen.... observe....act. more

Poultry farmer and chicken droppings.

When blood is seen in cecal dropping this is indicative of coccidiosis, treat entire flock immediately and ensure bio security measures. When chicken droppings contain white and green substances….. what does that mean for the chicken? Droppings with urates (white) and bile (green). The bile indicates an empty intestine (starvation) and/ or an infection (such as IBD). The urates are a waste product of protein break-down (proteolysis). The health status of birds could easily be accessed from symptoms,signs and most definitely from appearance of droppings hence observation is key in poultry management.The success of the poultry business is hinged on the rapid interpretation of signs,symptoms and an active prevention and treatment protocol. The faster diseases are diagnosed or outbreak prevented the higher the profit margin and turn over of business. The watch word is listen--observe--act ..

Snakes and medical benefits.

Snakes as creepy but help preserve the ecosystem by the predation on rodents and smaller mammals. The snakes make up a significant proportion of the middle-layer predators that keep our natural ecosystems working, without them the numbers of prey species would increase to unnatural levels and the predators that eat snakes struggle to find food will turn to other species thus endangering other species thus tilting the ecobalance. Snakes keeping the number of rodents and other reptiles under control are also beneficial to man directly because of the venom. Snake venom has been reported to provide treatment in certain disease conditions. Snake venom though awkward to comprehend its usefulness is basically protein and some enzymes,so the building,repairing and regenerative properties of protein is the key to the usefulness of the venom. The snake venom is categorized based on the site of action thus it could be neurotropic,hemotropic cardio tropic and this information is the platform that sets the stage as which venom to use in the case of any medical conditions. Snake venom's are collected purified ,processed and tested before use in medicine. Snake venom has been found to have hemostatic properties thus useful to stop excessive bleeding during surgery.see Snake venom has ability to break blood clots,this has been used in treatment of stroke patients.The neurotropic venom have been used in treatment protocols for Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. The use of the venom has been explored in treatment of certain cancers such as breast cancer,and also in the cosmetics industry as anti aging cream. The fashion industry have benefited from snakes by using the skin for fashion accessories such as bags,shoes and belts racking in a lot of forex.

WHY DOES THAT EGG HAVE FISHY TAINT?

Fishy egg taint is an unpleasant experience both for farmer and customers and also the financial implication of this can be devastating.Some school of thought have proposed that excessive addition of fish meal to diet is the cause of taint,which was quickly discredited because experiment showed that chicken exposed to same feed had different results as only few eggs had the taint and some not exposed to ration with fish meal had eggs with fishy taint. Another school of thought proposed that it was the side effect of rapeseed in layer ration that causes the taint as some others that were not exposed to such rations had tainted eggs.Egg taint has been found to be caused by transfer and excretions of smelling substances resulting from endogenous metabolism in chicken to the eggs.The fishy taint is caused by accumulation of trimethylamine in the yolk. Trimethylamine (TMA) is caused by bacterial fermentation of choline in the small intestine and caeca. The liver converts TMA to non smelly TMA N-oxide, the smelly taint can arise from dietary of TMA or from precursors for TMA formation. The culprit in the taint has been linked to a gene FOM3-gene, hence a hen lacking this gene will not be able to convert TMA to the non smelly TMA N-oxide.This defect has been observed in certain strains of brown layers hence sourcing from genetically tested and proven strains is important.

HOW TO TURN POOP INTO FUEL.

Poop better referred to as feces or waste has found another use aside from fertilizer and electricity generation,now there is a new technique that converts poop to petrol. The need to look at alternative to promote environmental safety as regards waste management has produced so many by-products that are economical but also eco-friendly. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have successfully taken raw sewage and converted it to what they call biocrude oil, which can be refined in the same way as crude oil to make fuels like gasoline and diesel. The technique is called hydrothermal liquefaction, and it’s an accelerated, artificial version of the process by which crude oil is created inside the Earth’s crust. Waste is subjected to high pressure and temperature—3,000 pounds per square inch and 660 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively—which cause it to break down into basic chemical compounds.Scientists have essentially taken a natural process that normally takes millions of years and replicated it in a lab such that it can be done in hours. The researchers working on this project estimated one person, over the course of a year, could generate two to three gallons of biocrude oil. A 42-gallon barrel of crude oil yields about 19 gallons of gasoline, so assuming a similar conversion rate, three gallons of biocrude may yield about 1.4 gallons of gasoline. This waste to wealth initiative if properly harnessed can revive countries whose economy is fuel-dependent and also boost other countries that have no reliable means of survival but have enormous waste they generate and litter the environment constituting a nuisance. The first step towards harnessing this waste will be to build proper toilets with sewage treatment plants to collect the waste and start the journey towards conversion and fuel generation.