Joint disorder; a contributory cause to reproductive failure in beef bulls?

نویسندگان

  • Ylva Persson
  • Lennart Söderquist
  • Stina Ekman
چکیده

The lame sire, unsound for breeding, can cause substantial economic loss due to reduced pregnancies in the beef-producing herd. To test the hypothesis that joint disorder is a possible cause of infertility in beef sires, right and left hind limb bones from 34 beef sires were examined postmortem to identify lesions in the femorotibial, femoropatellar (stifle), tarsocrural, talocalcaneus, and proximal intertarsal (tarsal) joints. The bulls were slaughtered during or after the breeding season due to poor fertility results. Aliquots of the cauda epididymal contents taken postmortem from 26 bulls were used for sperm morphology evaluation. As a control, hind limbs (but no semen samples) from 11 beef bulls with good fertility results were included. Almost all infertile bulls (30/34) had lesions in at least one joint. Twenty-eight bulls (28/30, 93%) had lesions in the stifle joint, and 24 (24/28, 86%) of these were bilateral. Fourteen bulls (14/30, 47%) had lesions in the tarsal joint, and 10 (10/14, 71%) of these were bilateral. Four bulls (4/34, 12%) had no lesions, three bulls (3/34, 9%) had mild osteoarthritis (OA), 5 (5/34, 15%) moderate OA, 17 (17/34, 50%) severe OA and 5 (5/34, 15%) deformed OA. Almost all OA lesions (97%) were characterized as lesions secondary to osteochondrosis dissecans. All the bulls with satisfactory sperm morphology (n = 12/34) had joint lesions, with mostly severe or deformed bilateral lesions (83%). Consequently, the most likely cause of infertility in these 12 bulls was joint disease. Almost all control bulls (10/11) had OA lesions, but most of them were graded as mild (55%) or moderate (36%). None of the control bulls had severe lesions or deformed OA. We suggest that joint lesions should be taken into consideration as a contributory cause of reproductive failure in beef sires without symptoms of lameness.

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

Reproductive Performance of Two- and Three-year-old Bulls Assigned Twenty-five or Forty Cows during the Breeding Period

Twoand 3-year-old beef bulls were exposed to 25 or 40 beef cows on pasture during a 90-day breeding period. Reproductive performance of bulls by age of bull and size of cow group was evaluated in terms of percentage calf crop. Results indicated that reproductive performance of 2-year-old bulls was higher, but not significantly different (P>.05), than that of 3-year-old bulls. The percentage cal...

متن کامل

Fertility of yearling beef bulls during mating.

Crossbred (Bos taurus) yearling beef bulls were assessed for breeding soundness and physical traits prior to multi-sire natural mating at pasture. Bulls (n = 60) were assigned to six groups of nine or 10 bulls and two bull-groups were rotated on 14-day intervals during a 63-day mating season in each breeding herd (n = 3) of 191-196 cows. The remaining bulls (n = 14) were maintained under simila...

متن کامل

An investigation into the causes of low calving percentage in communally grazed cattle in Jericho, North West Province.

The communal grazing system is generally understood to have a low input, low output type of management. However, the actual inputs and outputs of the farmers are not well known and the farmers are often unaware of their problems. Although the causes of low calving percentage are well understood in commercial beef farming enterprises in South Africa, the same is not true for communal farming sys...

متن کامل

Impact of selection for residual feed intake on breeding soundness and reproductive performance of bulls on pasture-based multisire mating.

There is concern in the beef industry that selecting bulls for feed efficiency based on residual feed intake (RFI) may have a negative impact on bull reproductive performance and fertility. Here we investigated the impact of selection of bulls for low RFI on breeding soundness evaluation (BSE), reproductive performance, and fertility of bulls under natural service in multisire mating groups on ...

متن کامل

Effects of Label Dose Permethrin Use in Yearling Angus Beef Bulls on Reproductive Function and Testicular Histopathology

and Implications To eliminate the potential for insect borne diseases and improve productivity in cow-calf operations, many producers use pour-on pyrethroids. However, popular press literature has identified potential links between use of pyrethroids and reproductive function failures in bulls. While literature in mice and rats have reported potential endocrine disruption of sex steroids result...

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

عنوان ژورنال:
  • Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica

دوره 49  شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2007