We conducted a cross-sectional study from August 2003 to February 2004 to identify risk factors for bovine tuberculosis (BTB) in the Kafue basin of Zambia. We investigated a total of 106 herds of cattle for presence of BTB using the comparative intradermal tuberculin test (CITT) while an interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to gather epidemiological data on herd structure, management...

BACKGROUND Eradication of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) through the application of test-and-cull programs is a declared goal of developed countries in which the disease is still endemic. Here, longitudinal data from more than 1,700 cattle herds tested during a 12 year-period in the eradication program in the region of Madrid, Spain, were analyzed to quantify the within-herd transmission coefficient...

This paper considers the potential problems that may militate against the adoption of organic poultry production in Nigeria. Factors identified include: higher risk of diseases like coccidiosis and Newcastle disease, disease prevention and control / herd health management, disease containment in times of outbreak, land acquisition (land tenure system), market economies / cost-benefit ratio, pas...

The efficiency of Simmentaler cross (SX), Bonsmara cross (BX), Afrikaner (AF) and Nguni (NG) cowherds to produce weaner calves under natural sweetveld conditions was investigated. The respective cowherds were selected to differ with regard to frame size (SX > BX > AF > NG). The AF cows, young (13 to 15 months old) heifers and herd had significantly lower pregnancy rates than the SX, BX and NG c...

In this article the use of somatic cell counts for monitoring udder health and milk quality is discussed. Somatic cell count dynamics at quarter, cow, herd and population level are discussed and illustrated with examples. Quarter and cow somatic cell counts directly represent the inflammatory status of the mammary gland. Herd and population somatic cell count are related to the inflammatory pro...

Resilient cows are minimally affected in their functioning by infections and other disturbances, recover quickly. Herd management is expected to have an effect on disturbances the resilience of cows, this was investigated study. Two indicators were first recorded individual cows. The herd-year these then estimated corrected for genetic year-season effects. 2 variance lag-1 autocorrelation daily...

Pregnancy rate evaluation of the profitability of any beef cattle operations, the profit or loss is one of the most important factors determining. Emphasis and focus on adequate nutrition and reproductive management beef cattle herd, but, unfortunately, most placed little emphasis on beef cattle operations kept. However, each beef cattle breeding season during a typical cow-calf operation in 15...

Delayed conception is defined as an interval of greater than 90 days postpartum before a cow becomes pregnant again. In this study, the risk factors for delayed conception in Korean dairy herds were determined by evaluating several reproductive factors in individual cows. The following data was recorded from 1,012 pregnancies in eight dairy herds (designated A-H) from July 2001 to June 2006: he...

Managers of high producing dairy herds have known for some time that optimizing reproductive efficiency is an essential issue in maintaining profitability of a dairy herd. A recent survey by the University of Wisconsin Center for Dairy Profitability asked a random sample of 2,700 dairy producers in Wisconsin to rank the importance of different dairy issues to the future profitability of their b...

pregnancy rate is one of the most important factors determining profit or loss. Considerable emphasis and focus is placed on the nutritional and reproductive management of the cow herd; but, unfortunately, in most operations little emphasis is placed on the bull. However, each bull is expected to impregnate from 15 40 females during the breeding season in a typical cow-calf operation and, thus,...