Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is an important viral disease of sheep and goats, endemic in India. The study was undertaken to characterize the local PPRV by sequencing fusion (F) protein and nucleoprotein (N) gene segments and phylogenetic analysis, so as to focus on genetic variation in the field viruses. Selected regions of PPRV genome were amplified from clinical samples collected from 32...

Livestock grazing, which has a large influence on habitat structure, is associated with the widespread decline of various bird species across the world, yet there are few experimental studies that investigate how grazing pressure influences avian reproduction. We manipulated grazing pressure using a replicated field experiment, and found that the offspring sex ratio of a common upland passerine...

Small ruminants are very important livestock species in the English-speaking Caribbean. Total populations for the Caribbean region are approximately 677,000 goats and 281,000 sheep. Although the primary purpose of sheep and goats is meat production for local consumption, the animals are also a source of emergency income. Production systems are generally characterised as small-scale and low-inpu...

Oestrus ovis (L.) (Diptera: Oestridae), the nasal bot fly, has a relatively short free-living life cycle outside of the host, and therefore it is necessary to know when the parasitic period occurs in order to prevent the clinical signs and economic losses caused by this parasite. The length of this parasitic portion of the life cycle is quite variable: a few weeks to several months depending on...

Prostaglandin (PG) F-2\g=a\is involved in a number of reproductive functions, including luteolysis (Goding, 1974) and menstruation (Pickles, Hall, Best & Smith, 1965). Luteolysis in sheep is controlled by a local feedback loop operating between the uterus and the corpus luteum, and menstruation in primates is also directly controlled by the ovarian steroid hormones. A fuller knowledge of how th...

A HERD OF POLISH LOWLAND LOCAL SHEEP WAS DIVIDED INTO TWO EQUAL GROUPS: the first group was kept under an overhead shelter, and the second group was kept in a warm barn. The effect of maintenance on ewe's reproductive performance, survival as well as the growth rate of lambs, and their carcasses quality was investigated. The lack of differences in fertility and prolificacy of ewes as well as in...

Selection for breeding animals as parents of next generation, based on genetic analyses of most important traits, became a standard for selection practices in most of the farm animal species in Slovakia. In this respect, about ten years of experience could be traced in Slovakian dairy cattle (Candrák et al., 1997) and pigs (Groeneveld and Peškovičová, 1999 and Peškovičová et. al., 1999). First ...

Illthrift was observed in 20/60 lambs aged 40-45 days in a dairy sheep flock in Greece. Cryptosporidiosis had been diagnosed and successfully treated with halofuginone lactate a month earlier. Parasitological examinations were negative for endoparasites while hematology and biochemistry were unremarkable. Necropsy of 5 lambs revealed lung and liver abscessation, presumably secondary to umbilica...

Previous studies demonstrated that bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) died of pneumonia when commingled with domestic sheep (Ovis aries) but did not conclusively prove that the responsible pathogens were transmitted from domestic to bighorn sheep. The objective of this study was to determine, unambiguously, whether Mannheimia haemolytica can be transmitted from domestic to bighorn sheep when they ...

BACKGROUND The success rate of rotator cuff repairs is variable. This study was performed to evaluate the ability of recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-12 (rhBMP-12), administered in several carriers, to accelerate healing in a sheep model of rotator cuff repair. METHODS Local retention of tracer amounts of radiolabeled rhBMP-12, added to non-radiolabeled rhBMP-12 delivered in buffe...