Cattle have a low risk of death during sea transport from Australia. The risk of death can be reduced on voyages to the Middle East by preferentially exporting cattle from northern ports, and selecting those with a higher Bos indicus content whenever possible.

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Post-mortem examinations were conducted on 950 dead and terminally ill sheep during assembly for export and during transport by sea from Fremantle, Western Australia to various Middle East ports. Causes of death were grouped into 5 major categories; inanition (deaths associated with reduced feed intake, including hypocalcaemia and hypomagnesaemia), salmonellosis (enteric and septicaemic), trauma, diseases associated with excessive feed intake (lactic acidosis and enterotoxaemia) and miscellaneous diseases (mostly of farm origin). During assembly the causes of death were salmonellosis 53.4%, miscellaneous diseases 23.8%, trauma 12.6%, inanition 10.2%, acidosis 3.9%, enterotoxaemia 3.4% and no diagnosis was made in 3.4%. During shipping the causes of death in defined populations of sheep in 5 voyages were; inanition 43.4%, salmonellosis 20.2%, trauma 10.6%, miscellaneous diseases 5.9%, enterotoxaemia 1.0% and no diagnosis was made in 19.0%. The range of mortality rates per 10,000 sheep at risk for the first 11 days at sea in 5 voyages were inanition 52.6 to 76.7, salmonellosis 7.8 to 109.8, trauma 2.1 to 17.1, miscellaneous diseases 5.9 to 17.1 and enterotoxaemia nil to 10.3.

A study was conducted to determine the role of season, age and adiposity in the cause of sheep deaths during sea transport from Fremantle to the Middle East. Death rates were higher in the second half of the year in 4 of 5 years. Shipboard death rates in hogget wethers were approximately half those of adult wethers in each of three methods of comparison. Sheep condition (adiposity) was positively correlated with the proportion of sheep that did not eat pellets in the feedlot (P < 0.05) and with shipboard mortality (P < 0.01) in two of three voyages. Individual sheep that were identified as fat had approximately twice the risk of death from inanition aboard ship than sheep identified as not fat. Adiposity was identified as a central factor leading to a syndrome of persistent inappetance. The pathogenesis of this syndrome in adult wethers may be linked to interference with the seasonal control of appetite and energy metabolism. The lower death rate in younger wethers was attributed to the overriding demands of tissue growth, ensuring a stronger appetite than that seen in adult animals.

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