Category: Livestock Health

Strategies for Handling a Hay Shortage

By Jacki Perkins As I am writing this, winter deepens and spring is still a far off dream, and the effects of last summer’s drought will begin to be felt. For anyone buying hay last season, it was a study in budgeting: both for pocketbooks and rations. Short of selling livestock to anyone with enough

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Common Spring and Summer Ailments in Livestock

Drawing by Toki Oshima By Jacki Perkins As fall fades to winter and we hunker down in hopes of an early spring, we can ready ourselves to handle livestock health concerns that are common during the spring and summer months. Winter can be an excellent time to reflect on what we saw in our pastures

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Managing Ectoparasites

By Diane Schivera, M.A.T. Ectoparasites (parasites that live on the outside of the host) can cause large financial losses to livestock farmers if not managed in a way to reduce populations. Itching and skin irritations cause animals to scratch, rub and bite infested areas. Blood loss, depressed appetite and decreased rate of weight gain are

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Escaping Mad Cow Disease

By Eric Sideman, Ph.D., MOFGA’S Director of Technical Services How quickly an apparently unknown disease can arise and cause widespread fear. The disease is called Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) but is more commonly referred to as “mad cow disease.” The fear spread worldwide as we watched Great Britain, the only country with a major outbreak,

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Comfortable Cows

Comfortable livestock will be happier, healthier and more productive. English photo. By Diane Schivera, M.A.T. Robert Graves of Penn State University, the featured speaker at the Maine Dairy Improvement 2011 meeting, talked about cow comfort. His information applies to other livestock as well. Comfortable livestock are likely to be healthier and less stressed than uncomfortable

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Parasites

By Diane Shivera Because animals have been indoors for much of the last four months, they are more likely to have developed skin problems than in spring, summer and fall. Not only is sunshine the best cure for skin diseases or parasites, but it may “brighten” animals’ spirits – as it does for many of

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Conferences

By Diane Shivera On October 18 Henrietta Beaufait, D.V.M., of Albion, gave a well attended workshop in Unity on the principles of homeopathy (which led to a lively discussion about vaccinations) and on the value of understanding the Materia Medica. For those of you using homeopathy to heal your animals, we are organizing a study

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Foot Mouth

The Ecologist Provides Overview of “Slash and Burn” Control in the UK By Diane Schivera Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) has other common names: hoof and mouth disease, aftosa (other diseases with similar symptoms use this name) and apthous fever. It is an acute, highly contagious disease caused by one of the smallest, filterable viruses

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