Evaluation of some etiological factors predisposing to diarrhoea in lambs in “La Serena” (Southwest Spain)

Abstract

This study compares some etiological factors involved in the naturally occurrence of lamb scours in 18 Merino sheep farms randomly selected in the area of "La Serena" (Southwest Spain).A lack of influence of some variables (flock size, type of facilities, type of breeding, lambing percentage, isolation of Campylobacter jejuni, Rotavirus spp., Coronavirus spp. and Salmonella spp.) on lamb mortality rate was detected. The opposite was true for cleaning of the lambing areas, organization of lambing periods, accumulation of lambs in the pens, high content of fat, protein and lactose in milk and low serum gamma globulin and total protein in lambs and ewes. Cryptosporidium spp. and Escherichia coli isolation showed a trend to be linked to the presence of diarrhoea. A positive correlation was found between serum total protein in ewes and serum gamma globulin in lambs. Thus, the measure of serum total protein in ewes before lambing would be a valuable indicator of the risk of lamb scouring and it would be useful to establish an adequate programme to prevent this condition in the farms of this geographical area.

Kuzularda Serum ve Kolostral IgG (Pasif İmmünite) Konsantrasyonlarının Total Protein ve Sağlık İle İlişkisi

“…In addition, positive correlations were found between the individual values of IgG and TP in ewes before lambing. These results were in agreement with that of Andres et al [17] . Therefore, measuring serum IgG or TP in ewes before lambing would be a valuable indicator of the risk of lamb diseases or passive immunity.…”

“…This was accordance with previous studies [14,15] . Some studies considered that lambs with STPC-24 of less than 50 g/L [15] or 58 g/L [17] to be hypogammaglobulinemic and claimed that the risk of death in those lambs was high. Our study indicated that STPC-24 of 45 g/L or less could be a threshold that increases the risk of mortality in the neonatal period as 10 of the 13 lambs died in the neonatal period had STPC-24 ≤45 g/L.…”

“…Therefore, measuring serum IgG or TP in ewes before lambing would be a valuable indicator of the risk of lamb diseases or passive immunity. Andres et al [17] suggested that low immunity in lambs may be caused by a lower level of gamma globulin (<1.3 g/dL) and TP (<5.9 g/dL) in the dams. In the present study, mortality rates in the lambs of dams with STPC ≥59 g/L were low.…”

“…Therefore, passive immunity plays a critical determining role in the short-term health and survival for lambs until their own immune system begins functioning fully. Numerous studies in the past three decades correlated neonatal diseases with inadequate serum IgG, in other words, FPT in animals and thus suggested the importance of IgG in the prevention of infections and enhancing growth performance in neonates [1,2,5,8,9,14,[16][17][18] .…”

Immunohistochemical Detection of Viral Etiopathogenesis in Lambs and Goat Kids with Neonatal Diarrhea

“…Neonatal enteritis in goat kids and lambs 21 days of age, or younger, is one of the most common diseases causing high morbidity and mortality in these animals [2,10,14]. The impaired growth of neonatal goat kids and lambs afflicted with enteritis, the expenditures involved in treating these animals, and their increased mortality all have costly economic losses [2,10]. Rotaviruses, adenoviruses, herpes viruses, and coronaviruses appear to be the most common viruses that cause enteritis in humans and animals [14,15].…”