Veterinary Services

• Fasiolosis associated with hypocalcaemia in dairy cows
• Review of bovine abortion cases in 2007

• Fourteen outbreaks of pregnancy toxaemia confirmed in sheep flocks
• 115 incidents of chronic fasciolosis in sheep in first quarter of 2008 compared with 42 in the same period in 2007
• Porcine submissions dominated by outbreaks of respiratory diseases

Disease alerts for May and June

There is an inherent lapse of some six to eight weeks between the end of the month discussed in our report and its publication in the Veterinary Record. We were asked to predict conditions that practitioners should look out for in the coming month:

(1) Lead poisoning in cattle following turnout. Typically they find lead in batteries left in hedges.

(2) Tick borne diseases such as babesiosis and louping-ill.

(3) Pasteurellosis and clostridial disease in lambs

(4) Coccidiosis in game bird chicks.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The mean temperature was close to the long term average but it was the wettest March since 1994 with total rainfall at 127 per cent of the 1961 to 1990 average. The Scottish Government launched a consultation on sharing the responsibilities and costs of preventing and controlling animal disease specifically transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) in Scotland. Defra was consulting on the same issues south of the border. Publication of the Scottish agricultural income estimates for 2007 showed an increase in total income from the farming of 11.9 per cent in real terms from 2006. However this was largely due to substantial increases in output in the cereal sector. The output of finished cattle increased in value by only one per cent and the value of finished sheep decreased by one per cent. Finished pig output values were broadly stable and poultry sector output increased by 2.8 per cent.