Measures for Animal Disease Prevention

This article will treat in general the signs exhibited by a healthy animal, signs of ill health or animal diseases, and general measures of disease prevention in a firm. Because these measures are similar for most livestock.

Health is commonly defined as freedom from disease and disease can be defined as any disturbance of the normal body processes which affects an animal adversely such an upset can be caused by physical injuries, bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi or poison, or by dietetic errors, metabolic disturbance or hereditary detects. Every effort must be made to support health and so avoid diseases.

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Signs of Good Health

There are a number of clinical signs which an animal attendant can look for which can give an indication of the health status of his herd.

A healthy animal is one whose body process function properly so that it can live an active life, grow steadily, reproduce and attain the maximum level of production of which it is genetically capable.

1. Attention to Surrounding: A healthy animal shows interest in its surroundings. It is always ready to take flight if worried by anything that happens.

2. Good Appetites: Healthy animals have good appetites, both on a pasture where it actively looks for its food and in the house, where it quickly consumes the food given to it ruminants chew the end normally. A first sign if illness is refusal to eat.

3. Animal Posture and Appearance: A healthy animal carries its head high and is alert. Dejected appearance are indications that all is not well with an animal.

4. Absence of Discharge: Health animals do not have any discharge. The eyes are dry and clear, no nasal discharges or inflamed (swollen) running eyes.

5. Maintenance of Weight: Healthy adult animals should maintain their weight and young animals increase their body weight. Animals showing obvious loss of body weight are probably unwell.

6. Normal Breathing: Breathing should not be too rapid or erratic and it should be noiseless continuous or intermittent coughing shows that there is an irritation in the respiratory tract.

7. Normal Faecal Appearance: Faecal appearance indicates the state of the digestive tract . Constipation and diarrhea are signs of digestive disorders. The urine of a healthy animal in pale straw- coloured liquid with a distinct smell.

8. Fairly Constant Body Temperature: The internal body temperatures of healthy animals remain fairly constant at levels which vary according to species that of sheep, goats and cows range between 38.5oC -39oC.

Temperatures may however, be raise by exertion particularly in hot weather and by fear, but disease is the principal cause of a rise temperature.

Signs of ill Health

In contrast to the above mentioned signs of good health. Animals that is sick or incubating a disease show some general systemic or local signs that must be carefully observed.

1. Listlessness: Animal lags bind the flock and keeps away from the other animals moving little it at all, and with its head down.

2. Lack of Appetite: Animal shows no interest in feed.

3. High Temperature: Any temperature above 39.5oC should be considered an indicative of disease probably infectious disease.

4. Congestion of Mucosa Around the Eyes: This congestion if often accompanied by weeping sometimes it appears pale or white in the case of anaemia it may be yellowish in colour.

5. Running Nostrils: This usually occurs with discharge of a purulent blood stained liquid. Nasal discharges is often accompanied by coughing.

6. Diarrhoea: This can easily be detected because the animals hindquarters and tail are dirty with swollen left flank. The animals left flank appears swollen rather than hollow

Appearance of feet, udder, testides and sheath may show abnormalities and sheath that are usually manifested as heat, redness and pain on palpation.

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General Measures of Animal Disease Prevention

Methods of animal disease prevention will vary according to the particular causal agent and in some cases he species of animal, but there are some few measures which have general application.

1. Quarantine: All newly purchased animals should be isolated and kept separately under observation for a period of 10days. During this period any sign of ill health should be noticed and treated appropriately before the animal is introduce to the herd.

This is important because it prevents the introduction of disease from outside. While in isolation, the animal should be dewormed, deticked and given a broad spectrum antibiotics.

2. Vaccination: Animals should be vaccinated against preventable diseases such as at the right time and age.

3. Avoid Overcrowding: Animals should not be overcrowded in a pen or house. Overcrowding allows for easy spread of disease particularly contagious disease such as disease cause by parasites and fungi.

4. Separate Sick from Healthy Animals: Once an animal shows any sign of ill health it should be separated from he healthy ones and treated in isolation. This is to prevent it spreading the disease to others. When the animals is considered fully recovered it should then be reintroduced.

Young animals should be housed separately, adult animals may have infection agents to which they have acquired resistance and do not therefore suffer from the disease, but young animals are susceptible and may catch and develop disease.

5. Toxic materials: This should be kept away from animal, certain chemical compounds and plants are poisonous and may cause disorder it infested such materials should not be allowed to contaminate their food or drinking water. Animals grazing on good pasture tend to avoid poisonous plants.

6. Avoid under nutrition: Under nutrition is a major disease – causing error in a farm particularly seen in animals entirely dependent on grazing bare pastures or those under confinement but not properly feed.

This apart from causing a disease problem of its own lowers the resistance of the animal to other animal diseases.

7. Regular Dipping/Spraying: Animals should be depped or sprayed regularly against external parasite. Such as ticks and flees. This should be done more often during the rainy season.

External parasite causes irritation on the animal and some are agents of disease when external parasites are left unchecked, hey have the overall effect of decreasing productivity.

8. Regular Deworming: Deworm animals with broad spectrum anthelminthic once a month during the rainy season and less frequently during the dry season.

However, in livestock production a lot depends on the knowledge and action of the husbandry man to take care of his animals and prevent or minimize animal disease incidence on his farm. His knowledge of measures of disease prevent and signs of ill health will go a long way in improving animal productivity on he farm.

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