National bodies in Great Britain (GB) have expressed concern over young stock health and welfare and identified calf survival as a priority; however, no national data have been available to quantify mortality rates. The aim of this study was to quantify the temporal incidence rate, distributional features, and factors affecting variation in mortality rates in calves in GB since 2011. The purpose was to provide information to national stakeholder groups to inform resource allocation both for knowledge exchange and future research. Cattle birth and death registrations from the national British Cattle Movement Service were analyzed to determine rates of both slaughter and on-farm mortality. The number of births and deaths registered between 2011 and 2018 within GB were 21.2 and 21.6 million, respectively. Of the 3.3 million on-farm deaths, 1.8 million occurred before 24 mo of age (54%) and 818,845 (25%) happened within the first 3 mo of age. The on-farm mortality rate was 3.87% by 3 mo of age, remained relatively stable over time, and was higher for male calves (4.32%) than female calves (3.45%). Dairy calves experience higher on farm mortality rates than nondairy (beef) calves in the first 3 mo of life, with 6.00 and 2.86% mortality rates, respectively. The 0-to 3-mo death rate at slaughterhouse for male dairy calves has increased from 17.40% in 2011 to 26.16% in 2018, and has remained low (<0.5%) for female dairy calves and beef calves of both sexes. Multivariate adaptive regression spline models were able to explain a large degree of the variation in mortality rates (coefficient of determination = 96%). Mean monthly environmental temperature and month of birth appeared to play an important role in neonatal on-farm mortality rates, with increased temperatures significantly reducing mortality rates. Taking the optimal month of birth and environmental temperature as indicators of the best possible environmental conditions, maintaining these conditions throughout the year would be expected to result in a reduction in annual 0-to 3-mo mortality of 37,571 deaths per year, with an estimated economic saving of around £11.6 million (USD $15.3 million) per annum. National cattle registers have great potential for monitoring trends in calf mortality and can provide valuable insights to the cattle industry. Environmental conditions play a significant role in calf mortality rates and further research is needed to explore how to optimize conditions to reduce calf mortality rates in GB.

Jasmeet (2016) Ostertagia spp., rumen fluke and liver fluke single-and poly-infections in cattle: an abattoir study of prevalence and production impacts in England and Wales. Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 132 . pp. 98-106. ISSN 1873-1716 Access from the University of Nottingham repository: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37947/1/PREVET-16-102R2-1.pdf Copyright and reuse:The Nottingham ePrints service makes this work by researchers of the University of Nottingham available open access under the following conditions. This article is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives licence and may be reused according to the conditions of the licence. For more details see: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. This study aims at investigating the occurrence, risk factors and production impacts on beef 30 carcass parameters of three of the most important cattle helminth infections in England and 31Wales. Abomasa, reticulorumen and livers from healthy cattle were collected and examined 32 post-mortem quarterly over a one year period in an abattoir in South-West England. Specific 33 viscera from 974 cattle were collected, examined and scored for Ostertagia spp., adult rumen 34 fluke and liver fluke lesions/presence. A total of 89%, 25% and 29% of the carcasses had 35 lesions/presence of Ostertagia spp., rumen fluke and liver fluke, respectively, and 39% had 36 presence of helminth co-infection. Animal demographic and carcass parameters associated 37 with helminth infections were investigated using multilevel multinomial and multilevel linear 38 mixed models respectively. After adjusting for other factors, significant differences in the 39 distribution of helminth infections were observed among cattle by type of breed, animal 40 category (cow, heifer, steer and young bull), age, season and concurrent helminth infections. 41Compared to carcasses free of helminths, carcasses presenting solely Ostertagia Spp. lesions 42 or adult rumen fluke had significantly lower cold carcass weight (coef.: -30.58 [-50.92;-43 10.24] and -50.34 [-88.50;-12.18]) and fat coverage (coef.: -3.28 [-5.56;-1.00] and -5.49 [-44 10.28;-0.69]) and carcasses presenting solely liver fluke lesions had significantly lower 45 3 conformation grade (coef.: -3.65 [-6.98;-0.32]

As well as providing further evidence that it can no longer be automatically assumed that macrocylic lactone anthelmintics will be effective on sheep farms in this country, these findings also present a warning that increasingly complex parasite control options may have to be faced in the future.

The incidence of paramphistomosis, caused by the rumen fluke, Calicophoron daubneyi, has greatly increased within Europe in the last 15–20 years. However, the production impacts of this disease are poorly understood. This study firstly aimed to investigate the prevalence of rumen fluke in England and Northern Ireland (NI) by conducting an abattoir survey of dairy and beef cattle which also allowed the impact of rumen fluke on carcass weight, conformation and fat classification to be assessed. Secondly, an experiment aimed to assess the impact of C. daubneyi infection on diarrhea score, production loss and welfare in dairy heifers, while also evaluating the impacts of treating infected heifers with oxyclozanide. Rumen fluke prevalence was greater in NI than in England, with 53.8% (95% CI 51.9 - 55.9%) of the NI cattle carcases sampled being infected compared to 16.3% (95% CI 15.8 - 16.8%) and 17.9% (95% CI 17.4 - 18.4%) detected at the two abattoirs in England. However, there was no significant difference (P &gt; 0.05) in the cold carcass weight between infected and non-infected cattle. Similarly, carcass conformation and fat classification were unaffected (P &gt; 0.05) by the presence of rumen fluke. In the second experiment, daily live weight gain (DLWG), diarrhea score and welfare score were also unaffected (P &gt; 0.05) by rumen fluke infection and by oxyclozanide treatment against rumen fluke. The farms in this experiment were managed to a high standard and animals had no intercurrent disease. Therefore, these findings suggest that on well–managed farms, production losses (growth rates) should not be compromised as a result of sub-clinical rumen fluke infection.

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