Livestock and horses are integral components of agricultural systems, providing resources such as meat, milk, fiber, and labor. Horses, in particular, have unique roles in agriculture, sport, and recreation, distinguishing them from other livestock. This topic explores the management, breeding, nutrition, and health of horses and other livestock species. It encompasses studies on husbandry practices, welfare considerations, and the impact of these animals on the environment and economy. The page includes peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that investigate various aspects of livestock and equine science, offering insights into their biological, ecological, and economic significance.
Tiwari M, Sodhi M, Verma P, Vivek P, Kataria RS, Niranjan SK, Bharti VK, Masharing N, Gujar G, Chanda D, Mukesh M.The identification of appropriate references genes is an integral component of any gene expression-based study for getting accuracy and reliability in data interpretation. In this study, we evaluated the expression stability of 10 candidate reference genes (GAPDH, RPL4, EEF1A1, RPS9, HPRT1, UXT, RPS23, B2M, RPS15, ACTB) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of livestock species that are adapted to high altitude hypoxia conditions of Leh-Ladakh. A total of 37 PBMCs samples from six native livestock species of Leh-Ladakh region such as Ladakhi cattle, Ladakhi yak, Ladakhi donkey, Chanthangi goat...
Fraser MD, Vallin HE, Roberts BP.Grasslands dominate land cover nationally and globally, and their composition, structure and habitat value are strongly influenced by the actions of domestic and wild grazing animals that feed on them. Different pastures are characterised by varying opportunities for selective feeding by livestock; agronomically improved, sown swards generally consist of a limited range of plant species whereas longer-term leys and semi-natural grasslands are characterised by a more diverse mixture of plants. In the case of botanically diverse permanent pastures/grazing lands, the dietary preferences of differ...
Chapman GR, Wells B, Gilkerson JR, Flash ML.In recent years there has been public speculation about the breed, destination and number of horses being sold by public auction at livestock saleyards in Australia. Currently, there is little objective information available about the breed and condition of horses sold through this medium. With little publicly available objective data on these horses, the horse industry has been left vulnerable to misinformation. Accurate information regarding the composition and condition of horses attending saleyards is important to identify and address any welfare issues and to inform public debate. Methods...
Suminda GGD, Bhandari S, Won Y, Goutam U, Kanth Pulicherla K, Son YO, Ghosh M.Increasing globalization, agricultural intensification, urbanization, and climatic changes have resulted in a significant recent increase in emerging infectious zoonotic diseases. Zoonotic diseases are becoming more common, so innovative, effective, and integrative research is required to better understand their transmission, ecological implications, and dynamics at wildlife-human interfaces. High-throughput sequencing (HTS) methodologies have enormous potential for unraveling these contingencies and improving our understanding, but they are only now beginning to be realized in livestock resea...
Morley M, Loeb J.As Malcolm Morley becomes BVA president for 2022/23, Josh Loeb chats to him about his love for horses and why the veterinary profession is actually a human-centred business.
Cao X, Qiu X, Shi N, Ha Z, Zhang H, Xie Y, Wang P, Zhu X, Zhao W, Zhao G, Jin N, Lu H.Getah virus (GETV) is a mosquito-borne, single-stranded, positive-sense RNA virus belonging to the genus of the family . Natural infections of GETV have been identified in a variety of vertebrate species, with pathogenicity mainly in swine, horses, bovines, and foxes. The increasing spectrum of infection and the characteristic causing abortions in pregnant animals pose a serious threat to public health and the livestock economy. Therefore, there is an urgent need to establish a method that can be used for epidemiological investigation in multiple animals. In this study, a real-time reverse tr...
Ojima Y, Torii S, Maeda Y, Matsuura A.Heat stress is serious problem for livestock. While riding horses and racehorses spend the majority of their days in stalls, there are few reports on effective methods for reducing stall heat stress. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an ice horse blanket in hot and humid environments. Twenty healthy horses were measured first without the blanket (C) and then measured with the blanket (IB), or vice versa, in a cross-over trial. The blanket was designed to keep cooling the front back, the rear back, and the loin. Skin surface temperature, respiratory rate, rectal ...
Behnke T, Street P, Davies S, Ouyang JQ, Sedinger JS.Non-native ungulate grazing has negatively impacted native species across the globe, leading to massive loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Despite their pervasiveness, interactions between non-native grazers and native species are not fully understood. We often observe declines in demography or survival of these native species, but lack understanding about the mechanisms underlying these declines. Physiological stress represents one mechanism of (mal)adaptation, but data are sparse. We investigated glucocorticoid levels in a native avian herbivore exposed to different intensities of ...
Sands B, Lihou K, Lait P, Wall R.The emergence of Babesia pathogens novel to the UK is of growing concern; these include Babesia canis and Babesia caballi. However, a better understanding of changes in the prevalence of endemic Babesia species such as Babesia venatorum and Babesia divergens is also of importance. Here, the prevalence of Babesia pathogens in both Dermacentor reticulatus and Ixodes ricinus ticks was assessed. Dermacentor reticulatus were collected from six sites known to harbour populations of this species in west Wales and southern England. DNA was extracted from 879 individual ticks and subjected to PCR and s...
Suresh KP, Patil SS, Nayak A, Dhanze H, Rajamani S, Shivamallu C, Cull CA, Amachawadi RG.Brucellosis is a highly contagious bacterial disease that mainly affects ruminants, but it may affect equines, canines, and felines. The disease is of utmost significance from an economic standpoint in countries where there is no national brucellosis prevention and eradication policy in operation. A systematic review was done to estimate disease burden, incidences, prevalence, and geographical distribution critical in planning appropriate intervention strategies for the control and prevention of Brucellosis. Research articles that were published during the period 2000-2020 were considered for ...
de Vos CJ, Petie R, van Klink EGM, Swanenburg M.Increasing globalization and international trade contribute to rapid expansion of animal and human diseases. Hence, preparedness is warranted to prevent outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging diseases or detect outbreaks in an early stage. We developed a rapid risk assessment tool (RRAT) to inform risk managers on the incursion risk of multiple livestock diseases, about the main sources for incursion and the change of risk over time. RRAT was built as a relational database to link data on disease outbreaks worldwide, on introduction routes and on disease-specific parameters. The tool was parame...
Feugang JM, Ishak GM, Eggert MW, Arnold RD, Rivers OS, Willard ST, Ryan PL, Gastal EL.Despite the progress in assisted reproductive techniques, there is still a lack of rapid and minimally invasive in situ approaches for further enhancements of female fertility. Therefore, we synthesized clinically relevant liposome nanoparticles for ovarian intrafollicular injection to allow in vivo cellular imaging for future drug delivery, using the mare as an animal model. Ovarian follicles of living mares were injected in vivo with fluorescently labeled liposomes. Samples of the follicular wall (mural granulosa, theca interna, and theca externa), granulosa cells, and follicular fluid wer...
Jung T, Park H, Kwon JY, Sohn S.Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) and Avian Influenza (AI) frequently occur in South Korea, resulting in high levels of occupational stress among quarantine workers forced to partake in massive livestock killings. This study explored the usefulness of Equine Assisted Learning (EAL) in improving these workers' psychological and emotional functioning. A total of 51 FMD/AI control workers participated in 16 sessions of an EAL program facilitated by therapeutic riding professionals and trained horses. Results showed significant changes in their stress level, coping style, and overall quality of life-re...
Panigrahi M, Kumar H, Saravanan KA, Rajawat D, Sonejita Nayak S, Ghildiyal K, Kaisa K, Parida S, Bhushan B, Dutt T.Livestock plays a central role in sustaining human livelihood in South Asia. There are numerous and distinct livestock species in South Asian countries. Several of them have experienced genetic development in recent years due to the application of genomic technologies and effective breeding programs. This review discusses genomic studies on cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat, pig, horse, camel, yak, mithun, and poultry. The frontiers covered in this review are genetic diversity, admixture studies, selection signature research, QTL discovery, genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and genomic select...
Khairullah AR, Sudjarwo SA, Effendi MH, Ramandinianto SC, Widodo A, Riwu KHP.Livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (LA-MRSA) was first discovered in horses in 1989. Since then, LA-MRSA has begun to be considered an important strain of pathogenic bacteria in horses, which can cause LA-MRSA infection and colonization in humans with public health impacts. The anterior nares are the primary site of LA-MRSA colonization in horses, although LA-MRSA colonization may also occur in the gastrointestinal tract in horses. LA-MRSA-infected horses typically exhibit clinical infection or may not exhibit clinical infection. There are two potential risks asso...
Voß K, Blaj I, Tetens JL, Thaller G, Becker D.Since domestication, a wide variety of phenotypes including coat color variation has developed in livestock. This variation is mostly based on selective breeding. During the beginning of selective breeding, potential negative consequences did not become immediately evident due to low frequencies of homozygous animals and have been occasionally neglected. However, numerous studies of coat color genetics have been carried out over more than a century and, meanwhile, pleiotropic effects for several coat color genes, including disorders of even lethal impact, were described. Similar coat color phe...
Perera NN, Weston PA, Barrow RA, Weston LA, Gurr GM.Volatile cues can play a significant role in the location and discrimination of food resources by insects. Dung beetles have been reported to discriminate among dung types produced by different species, thereby exhibiting behavioral preferences. However, the role of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in dung localization and preference remains largely unexplored in dung beetles. Here we performed several studies: firstly, cage olfactometer bioassays were performed to evaluate the behavioral responses of (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) to VOCs emanating from fresh horse, sheep, and cattle dung; seco...
Ramadan MM, Dailey D.This is the first account of fatal toxicity in horses resulting from grazing on the pasture plant creeping indigo, , on the island of Oahu, in the Hawaiian Islands. A survey in the town of Waialua on the north shore of Oahu island indicated that creeping indigo is common and abundant on grazing lands during the rainy season and requires intensive chemical and physical control measures. Four pastures were surveyed where ranchers reported mortality of more than 17 horses since 2020. We document these incidents to alert state animal and livestock support officials, groups monitoring invasive spec...
Bukhari SSUH, Rosanowski SM, McElligott AG, Parkes RSV.Working donkeys () are vital to people's livelihoods. They are essential for carrying goods, however, globally, overloading is one of the primary welfare concerns for working donkeys. We studied mounted load carrying by donkeys and associated factors in Pakistan. A cross-sectional study of donkey owners ( = 332) was conducted, and interviews were undertaken based on a questionnaire. Owners estimated that the median weight of their donkeys was 110 kg [interquartile range (IQR) 100-120 kg], and that they carried a median mounted load of 81.5 kg (IQR 63-99 kg). We found that 87.4% of donkeys carr...
Ventresca Miller AR, Wilkin S, Hendy J, Turbat T, Batsukh D, Bayarkhuu N, Giscard PH, Bemmann J, Bayarsaikhan J, Miller BK, Clark J, Roberts P....The initial movement of herders and livestock into the eastern steppe is of great interest, as this region has long been home to pastoralist groups. Due to a paucity of faunal remains, however, it has been difficult to discern the timing of the adoption of domesticated ruminants and horses into the region, though recent research on ancient dairying has started to shed new light on this history. Here we present proteomic evidence for shifts in dairy consumption in the Altai Mountains, drawing on evidence from sites dating from the Early Bronze to the Late Iron Age. We compare these finds with e...
Garhwal R, Sangwan K, Mehra R, Kumar N, Bhardwaj A, Pal Y, Buttar HS, Kumar H.In addition to providing individualized, specific, and ample nutritional compounds, donkey milk (DM) offers immunological modulation during health and disease. Recently, DM has attracted major interest in preparing infant formulas due to its similarity to human milk in terms of high protein and lactose content and low-fat concentration. The antimicrobial, anti-inflammation, antioxidant, and hypo-allergenicity properties of DM in human infants are well-documented. The purpose of this review is to summarize the knowledge of studies done in characterizing the composition of DM, including bioactiv...
Ortega-Sánchez R, Bárcenas-Reyes I, Cantó-Alarcón GJ, Luna-Cozar J, E RA, Contreras-Magallanes YG, González-Ruiz S, Cortez-García B....The spatio-temporal epidemiology of rabies has related the influence of environmental factors and anthropogenic changes on the movements of the hematophagous bat Desmodus rotundus. In Mexico, D. rotundus is the main transmitter of the rabies virus for different livestock species, modifying annually the fluctuation of the number of cases of rabies and its dissemination in subtropical areas and regions considered free of the disease. The purpose of this study was to perform a descriptive analysis of the distribution of cases of rabies in Mexico, and to perform a time-series analysis to evaluate ...
Farahi S, Shishehbor P, Nemati A, Perotti MA.Manure-inhabiting Mesostigmata mites are important biological control agents of pest flies. However, the biodiversity of this mite community is mainly known from Europe and America, and especially from cattle manure. This study examined the diversity and abundance of Mesostigmata mites associated with various types of manure in an (intensive) agricultural region of the Middle East, i.e., the city Ahvaz and its suburbs, in southwest Iran. Mite samples were extracted from manure of cattle, buffalo, sheep, horse, poultry and quail in 30 livestock and poultry farms. In total, 40 species belonging ...
Khusro A, Sahibzada MUK, Khan SU, Rajagopal R, Elghandour MMMY, Salem AZM, Kuppusamy P, Alcala-Canto Y, Tirado-González DN.Greenhouse gases emission from livestock is the major concern for the ecosystem. Despite the lower contribution of non-ruminants towards greenhouse gas emission as compared to the ruminants, the emission of methane (CH) gas from equines is expected to be increased in future due to its increasing population. Thus, it is essential to find or screen potential anti-methanogenic agent in a cost-effective and quicker manner. Considering this, the present investigation was aimed to analyze anti-methanogenic characteristic of bioactive compounds of safflower oil by targeting methanogenesis catalyzing ...
Atuman YJ, Kudi CA, Abdu PA, Okubanjo OO, Wungak Y, Ularamu HG, Abubakar A.Rift Valley fever (RVF) is an arthropod-borne zoonotic disease responsible for severe outbreaks in livestock and humans with concomitant economic losses in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The study, therefore, investigated the seroprevalence of the Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) among wild and domestic animals. Blood samples were collected between 2013 and 2015 from 106 wild animals, 300 cattle (), and 200 horses (), respectively, in Yankari Game Reserve (YGR) and Sumu Wildlife Park (SWP) in Bauchi state, Nigeria. Harvested sera from blood were evaluated for the presence of anti-RVFV IgM...
Martinez RE, Leatherwood JL, Bradbery AN, Silvers BL, Fridley J, Arnold CE, Posey EA, He W, Bazer FW, Wu G.In livestock species, the enterocytes of the small intestine are responsible for the synthesis of citrulline and arginine from glutamine and proline. At present, little is known about de novo synthesis of citrulline and arginine in horses. To test the hypothesis that horses of different age groups can utilize glutamine and proline for the de novo synthesis of citrulline and arginine, jejunal enterocytes from 19 horses of three different age groups: neonates (n = 4; 7.54 ± 2.36 d of age), adults (n = 9; 6.4 ± 0.35 yr), and aged (n = 6; 22.9 ± 1.0 yr) with healthy gastrointestinal tracts were...
Halvarsson P, Gustafsson K, Höglund J.A questionnaire was sent to sheep owners in Sweden to get information about anthelmintic drug use. The survey also investigated how respondents experienced problems with gastrointestinal nematode infections (GIN) focusing on Haemonchus contortus. The response rate was 31% and included both conventional and organic farms. The use of anthelmintics was low (45%), among which a majority (76%) drenched ewes on a single occasion, mostly with ivermectin (59%) followed by albendazole (19%). Other drugs were used rarely, however, unawareness of GIN risk was high (19%), especially among respondents with...
Laseca N, Molina A, Ramón M, Valera M, Azcona F, Encina A, Demyda-Peyrás S.The loss of genetic variability in livestock populations bred under strict selection processes is a growing concern, as it may lead to increased inbreeding values and lower fertility, as a consequence of the "inbreeding depression" effect. This is particularly important in horses, where inbreeding levels tend to rise as individuals become more and more closely related. In this study, we evaluated the effect of increased inbreeding levels on mare fertility by combining an SNP-based genomic approach using runs of homozygosity and the estimation of genetic breeding values for reproductive traits ...
Madkour FA, Abdelsabour-Khalaf M.Veterinary forensics have attracted less attention compared with human forensics. Animal hair morphological examination using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and hair mineral analysis using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (ED-XRF) provide reference databases for animal hair identification used in forensic investigations. This study was performed on four different animal species: large ruminants (buffalo and cattle), small ruminants (goat and sheep), carnivores (cat and dog), and equines (donkey and horse). The hair scale pattern, scale margin type, and distance between scales were iden...
Schnittger L, Ganzinelli S, Bhoora R, Omondi D, Nijhof AM, Florin-Christensen M.The order Piroplasmida, including the genera Babesia, Cytauxzoon, and Theileria is often referred to as piroplasmids and comprises of dixenous hemoprotozoans transmitted by ticks to a mammalian or avian host. Although piroplasmid infections are usually asymptomatic in wild animals, in domestic animals, they cause serious or life-threatening consequences resulting in fatalities. Piroplasmids are particularly notorious for the enormous economic loss they cause worldwide in livestock production, the restrictions they pose on horse trade, and the negative health impact they have on dogs and cats. ...
Geerts S, Coles GC, Gryseels B.During the past decade, the prevalence of anthelmintic resistance in some economically important helminths of sheep, goats and horses has increased dramatically. In some regions of Australia, South America and South Africa, anthelmintic resistance has become a serious threat to the survival of the sheep industry. Mass treatment programmes and exclusive reliance on anthelmintics for worm control in livestock are amongst the most important reasons for the development of anthelmintic resistance. In this article, Stanny Geerts, Gerald Coles and Bruno Gryseels draw the attention to a number of erro...
Payne RC, Sukanto IP, Djauhari D, Partoutomo S, Wilson AJ, Jones TW, Boid R, Luckins AG.Cattle, buffaloes and horses in several areas of Indonesia were examined for evidence of infection with Trypanosoma evansi by the microhaematocrit centrifugation technique (MHCT) and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for detection of antibodies to T. evansi. Evidence of infection was found in animals at each sampling site although differences were seen in prevalence rates between sites. Prevalence rates in buffalo were usually higher than in cattle in the same area while in horses they were much lower than in cattle or buffalo. An age-dependent prevalence rate was seen in buffalo an...
McGorum BC, Pirie RS, Glendinning L, McLachlan G, Metcalf JS, Banack SA, Cox PA, Codd GA.While toxins from aquatic cyanobacteria are a well-recognised cause of disease in birds and animals, exposure of grazing livestock to terrestrial cyanobacteria has not been described. This study identified terrestrial cyanobacteria, predominantly Phormidium spp., in the biofilm of plants from most livestock fields investigated. Lower numbers of other cyanobacteria, microalgae and fungi were present on many plants. Cyanobacterial 16S rDNA, predominantly from Phormidium spp., was detected in all samples tested, including 6 plant washings, 1 soil sample and ileal contents from 2 grazing horses. F...
Larsen M.Resistance against anthelmintics is widespread, particularly in parasitic nematode populations of small ruminants. Several new techniques or supplements have been developed or are under investigation. Biological control (BC) is one of these new methods. The net-trapping predacious fungus Duddingtonia flagrans produces thick walled resting spores, chlamydospores, which are able to survive passage through the gastrointestinal tract of cattle, horses, sheep and pigs. Under Danish climatic conditions it has been shown that the number of parasite larvae on pasture and the worm burden of the grazing...
Sreenivasan CC, Thomas M, Wang D, Li F.While the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to wreak havoc, there is little known about the susceptibility of the livestock and companion animals relative to humans. Here, we explore the susceptibility of companion and agricultural animals, in light of the existing information on natural infections, experimental infections, serosurveillance, and in vitro protein-homology binding interaction studies of the SARS-CoV-2 with the proposed receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 from diverse animal species.
Van Metre DC, Barkey DQ, Salman MD, Morley PS.To develop a syndromic surveillance system based on visual inspection from outside the livestock pens that could be used for detection of disease among livestock entering an auction market. Methods: Cross-sectional study. Methods: All livestock (beef and dairy cattle, sheep, goats, horses, and pigs) entering a single auction market in Colorado during 30 business days. Procedures-Livestock were enumerated and visually inspected for clinical signs of disease by a veterinarian outside the pens, and clinical signs that were observed were categorized into 12 disease syndromes. Frequency of clinical...
Tsachev I, Gospodinova K, Pepovich R, Takova K, Kundurzhiev T, Zahmanova G, Kaneva K, Baymakova M.In recent years, hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection has been found to be widespread among different animal species worldwide. In Bulgaria, high HEV seropositivity was found among pigs (60.3%), wild boars (40.8%), and East Balkan swine (82.5%). The aim of the present study was to establish the seroprevalence of HEV among dogs, cats, horses, cattle, sheep, and goats in Bulgaria. In total, 720 serum samples from six animal species were randomly collected: dogs-90 samples; cats-90; horses-180; cattle-180; sheep-90; and goats-90. The serum samples were collected from seven districts of the country: ...
Bukhari SSUH, Rosanowski SM, McElligott AG, Parkes RSV.Working donkeys () are vital to people's livelihoods. They are essential for carrying goods, however, globally, overloading is one of the primary welfare concerns for working donkeys. We studied mounted load carrying by donkeys and associated factors in Pakistan. A cross-sectional study of donkey owners ( = 332) was conducted, and interviews were undertaken based on a questionnaire. Owners estimated that the median weight of their donkeys was 110 kg [interquartile range (IQR) 100-120 kg], and that they carried a median mounted load of 81.5 kg (IQR 63-99 kg). We found that 87.4% of donkeys carr...
Haghi MM, Etemadifar F, Fakhar M, Teshnizi SH, Soosaraei M, Shokri A, Hajihasani A, Mashhadi H.Babesiosis is a protozoal disease caused by Babesia spp. in mammals and humans worldwide. It is one of the most important tick-borne diseases, which affects livestock productions, reproductions, and accordingly failing economy. In this, systematic review and meta-analysis, study, the prevalence of babesiosis among domestic herbivores in Iran, between 1998 and 2015, was methodically reviewed. Nine databases including five English and four Persian databases were explored. A total of 49 articles, as regards the examination of 13,547 sheep, 1920 goats, 7167 cattle, and 940 horses, corresponding to...
Kuhn C, Lucius R, Matthes HF, Meusel G, Reich B, Kalinna BH.Sarcoptic mange (or scabies) is an important skin disease which can affect a variety of species including humans, cattle, goats, sheep, horses, pigs, rabbits, and dogs. Approximately 300 million people are affected worldwide and in lifestock animals the infestation may lead to substantial economic losses caused by depression in growth and feed conversion rates. Diagnosis of Sarcoptes infestation is difficult and only a few serological tests have been developed using whole mite antigen for diagnosis of mange in animals. Here we describe the isolation and characterisation of cDNAs of several imm...
Van den Eede A, Martens A, Floré K, Denis O, Gasthuys F, Haesebrouck F, Van den Abeele A, Hermans K.Equine methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) carriage entails a risk of both equine and zoonotic transmission and infection. In Europe, CC398, the livestock-associated (LA-)MRSA is highly prevalent in horses and veterinary personnel at equine clinics. The extent of the MRSA reservoir created by healthy horses from the general population and associated health hazard for their daily caretakers is, however, unknown. This study aimed at screening healthy horse-caretaker couples from a broad range of home farms. At five equine gatherings, 166 couples were selected for MRSA screening in...
Sun Y, Liu Z, Ren L, Wei Z, Wang P, Li N, Zhao Y.This review focuses on the diversity of immunoglobulin (Ig) genes and Ig isotypes that are expressed in domestic animals. Four livestock species-cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses-express a full range of Ig heavy chains (IgHs), including μ, δ, γ, ϵ, and α. Two poultry species (chickens and ducks) express three IgH isotypes, μ, υ, and α, but not δ. The κ and λ light chains are both utilized in the four livestock species, but only the λ chain is expressed in poultry. V(D)J recombination, somatic hypermutation (SHM), and gene conversion (GC) are three distinct mechanisms by which immunog...
Sofizadeh A, Telmadarraiy Z, Rahnama A, Gorganli-Davaji A, Hosseini-Chegeni A.A survey on tick species composition was carried out in Golestan Province Iran during year 2010-2011.The aim was to determine tick species parasitizing domestic ruminants and their seasonal population dynamics. Methods: A total of 124 sheep, 92 goats, 84 cattle, 74 camels and 12 horses in several villages were inspected for tick infestation. The collected ticks preserved in 70% alcohol and then were identified. Results: The overall 1059 ticks (453 female, 606 male) were collected. The ticks occur on sheep, goats, cattle, camels and horses as 72.1%, 77.3%, 75.8%, 69.3%, and 50% respectively. Th...
Steel JW.The kinetics of avermectin disposition and metabolism in ruminant livestock and horses are reviewed with particular emphasis on the influence of route of administration and formulation on persistence of residues in tissues and excretion in faeces. Because information is not publicly available on other compounds in this class currently under development (e.g. moxidectin, doramectin), ivermectin only is considered. The biological half-life of ivermectin in plasma is similar in cattle and sheep but because of a larger volume of distribution, plasma clearance is more rapid in sheep. However, injec...
Davis E.Donkeys and mules have been critical to the development of human civilization, since being domesticated some 6000 years ago. However, they suffer from being undervalued or ignored by development agencies and animal protection nongovernmental organizations. Where they are recognized as affecting agriculture and the economy it is often because they are seen as being either invasive pests or an anachronism in the developing countries of the twenty-first century. Even in the wealthier societies of the world, donkeys suffer from ignorance about their proper management or a booming industry in heal...
Ellis-Iversen J, Pritchard GC, Wooldridge M, Nielen M.Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli are the most prevalent causes of bacterial diarrhoea in most of the Western World. In Great Britain, the source remains unknown for the majority of cases, though poultry is considered the main source of infection. Molecular typing methods identify cattle as a potential source of a proportion of the non-source-attributed cases, mainly through direct contact, environmental contamination or milk, but little is known about the epidemiology of Campylobacter in cattle. A cross-sectional study was undertaken on young cattle 3-17 months of age on 56 cattle farms in Eng...
Briski O, Salamone DF.During the past 2 decades, intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) has become a routine technique for clinical applications in humans. The widespread use among domestic species, however, has been limited to horses. In horses, ICSI is used to reproduce elite individuals and, as well as in humans, to mitigate or even circumvent reproductive barriers. Failures in superovulation and conventional in vitro fertilization (IVF) have been the main reason for the use of this technology in horses. In pigs, ICSI has been successfully used to produce transgenic animals. A series of factors have resulted in...
Dobrinsky JR.The development of embryo freezing technologies revolutionized cattle breeding. Since then, advancements in cryobiology, cell biology, and domestic animal embryology have enabled the development of embryo preservation methodologies for our other domestic animal species, including sheep and goats. Recently, technologies have been developed to cryopreserve pig embryos, notorious for their extreme sensitivity to cooling; horse embryo cryopreservation is in its infancy. While cryopreservation can enhance the utilization of in vitro embryo production technologies, cryosurvival of in vitro-produced ...
Vidyashankar AN, Kaplan RM, Chan S.Resistance to anthelmintics in gastrointestinal nematodes of livestock is a serious problem and appropriate methods are required to identify and quantify resistance. However, quantification and assessment of resistance depend on an accurate measure of treatment efficacy, and current methodologies fail to properly address the issue. The fecal egg count reduction test (FECRT) is the practical gold standard for measuring anthelmintic efficacy on farms, but these types of data are fraught with high variability that greatly impacts the accuracy of inference on efficacy. This paper develops a statis...
Zhang J, Kelly P, Li J, Xu C, Wang C.Theileria spp. are tick-transmitted, intracellular apicomplexan protozoan parasites infecting a wide range of animals. As there is very limited information on the prevalence of Theileria spp. in the Caribbean we used the recently described genus-specific pan-Theileria FRET-qPCR to identify infected animals in the region and a standard 18S rRNA gene PCR and sequencing to determine the species involved. We found Theileria spp. in 9% of the convenience samples of animals (n = 752) studied from five Caribbean islands. Donkeys (20.0%: 5/25) were most commonly infected, followed by sheep (17.4%, 25/...
Fraser MD, Vallin HE, Roberts BP.Grasslands dominate land cover nationally and globally, and their composition, structure and habitat value are strongly influenced by the actions of domestic and wild grazing animals that feed on them. Different pastures are characterised by varying opportunities for selective feeding by livestock; agronomically improved, sown swards generally consist of a limited range of plant species whereas longer-term leys and semi-natural grasslands are characterised by a more diverse mixture of plants. In the case of botanically diverse permanent pastures/grazing lands, the dietary preferences of differ...
Pitzer JB, Kaufman PE, Tenbroeck SH, Maruniak JE.A species-specific multiplex polymerase chain reaction targeting the cytochrome b gene of cattle, horses, humans, and dogs was developed to determine the blood meal sources of stable flies, Stomoxys calcitrans (L.), collected from Florida equine facilities. Of 595 presumptive blood-fed stable flies analyzed, successful host amplification was obtained in 350, for a field host-detection efficiency of 58.8%. The majority of analyzed stable flies had fed on cattle (64.6%), followed by horses (24.3%), humans (9.5%), and dogs (1.6%). A survey of animal-enclosed pastures occurring within 3 km of stab...
Li J, Kelly P, Zhang J, Xu C, Wang C.Babesia spp. are tick-borne protozoan hemoparasites and the second most common blood-borne parasites of mammals, in particular domestic animals. We used the Clustal Multiple Alignment program and 18S rRNA gene sequences of 22 Babesia species from GenBank to develop a PCR that could detect a wide variety of Babesia spp. in a single reaction. The pan-Babesia FRET-qPCR we developed reliably detected B. gibsoni, B. canis, B. vogeli, B. microti, B. bovis, and B. divergens under controlled conditions but did not react with closely related species, mainly Hepatozoon americanum, Theileria equi, and To...
Hao L, Yuan D, Li S, Jia T, Guo L, Hou W, Lu Z, Mo X, Yin J, Yang A, Zheng W, Li R.Theileria species, with a broad geographic distribution, infect a wide range of both domestic and wild animals and are transmitted by ixodid ticks. Currently, there is no comprehensive report regarding the distribution of Theileria spp. in the eastern Tibetan Plateau, especially in Ganze Tibetan autonomous prefecture (153,700 km) and Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture (84,242 km) of Sichuan province, China. In this study, we collected blood samples from yaks (n = 144) (Bos grunniens), Tibetan sheep (n = 92), and Tibet horses (n = 142) in Ganze and Ngawa.Theileria sinen...
Morota G, Peñagaricano F, Petersen JL, Ciobanu DC, Tsuyuzaki K, Nikaido I.An integral part of functional genomics studies is to assess the enrichment of specific biological terms in lists of genes found to be playing an important role in biological phenomena. Contrasting the observed frequency of annotated terms with those of the background is at the core of overrepresentation analysis (ORA). Gene Ontology (GO) is a means to consistently classify and annotate gene products and has become a mainstay in ORA. Alternatively, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) offers a comprehensive life science vocabulary including additional categories that are not covered by GO. Although...
Sevá ADP, Pena HFJ, Nava A, Sousa AO, Holsback L, Soares RM.Morro do Diabo State Park (MDSP) is a significant remnant of the Atlantic Rain Forest in Brazil and is surrounded by rural properties. In that area, wild and domestic animals and humans are in close contact, which facilitates the two-way flow of infectious diseases among them. We assessed endoparasites in domestic livestock from all rural properties surrounding MDSP. There were sampled 197 cattle, 37 horses, 11 sheep, 25 swine, 21 dogs, one cat and 62 groups of chickens from 10 large private properties and 75 rural settlements. Eimeria spp. was present in almost all hosts, excepted in horses, ...
Espunyes J, Lurgi M, Büntgen U, Bartolomé J, Calleja JA, Gálvez-Cerón A, Peñuelas J, Claramunt-López B, Serrano E.Changes in land-use and climate affect the distribution and diversity of plant and animal species at different spatiotemporal scales. The extent to which species-specific phenotypic plasticity and biotic interactions mediate organismal adaptation to changing environments, however, remains poorly understood. Woody plant expansion is threatening the extent of alpine grasslands worldwide, and evaluating and predicting its effects on herbivores is of crucial importance. Here, we explore the impact of shrubification on the feeding efficiency of Pyrenean chamois (Rupicapra p. pyrenaica), as well as ...
Ing NH, Forrest DW, Riggs PK, Loux S, Love CC, Brinsko SP, Varner DD, Welsh TH.In rodents, livestock and primate species, a single dose of the synthetic glucocorticoid dexamethasone acutely lowers testosterone biosynthesis. To determine the mechanism of decreased testosterone biosynthesis, stallions were treated with 0.1mg/kg dexamethasone 12h prior to castration. Dexamethasone decreased serum concentrations of testosterone by 60% compared to saline-treated control stallions. Transcriptome analyses (microarrays, northern blots and quantitative PCR) of testes discovered that dexamethasone treatment decreased concentrations of glucocorticoid receptor alpha (NR3C1), alpha a...
