ANIMAL HEALTH

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ANIMAL HEALTH

• UNIT 27
• Introduction to Environmental and Agricultural
  Sciences

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OBJECTIVES

• Identify signs of good and poor animal health.
• Understand how to prevent animal health problems.
  
• Identify symptoms of animal diseases and
  parasites.
• Explain various methods of treating animal health
  problems.

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SIGNS OF GOOD POOR ANIMAL HEALTH

• Ability to recognize signs of good health or the
  symptoms of health problems is the single most
  important key to being efficient in maintaining
  good animal health.
• Keen sense of observation is important.
• Ability to know when something is not right with
  an animal is important.

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SIGNS OF GOOD HEALTH

• Best sign is simply a contented animal
• Alertness and chewing of cud in ruminant animals
• Shiny hair coat, bright eyes and pink membranes
• Normal body discharges of urine feces
• Normal body temperature, pulse rate, and
  respiration or breathing rate

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NORMAL BODY TEMPERATURES FOR ANIMALS
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SIGNS OF POOR HEALTH

• Rough hair coat and dull, glassy eyes
• Animal stays alone with its head down
• Walks slowly when forced to walk
• Abnormal feces, either too hard or too soft, as
  well as discolored urine
• Lowered production
• High temperatures, labored breathing, and rapid
  pulse rates

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HEALTHFUL ENVIRONMENTS FOR ANIMALS

• Maintaining a healthy environment for animals is
  a key factor in a complete animal health program.
• Often much less expensive to maintain a healthy
  environment for animals than to treat unhealthy
  animals due to a poor living environment.

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SANITATION

• Important to good health
• Factors related to good sanitation include
  keeping facilities for animals clean
• Requires use of clean equipment
• Includes feed containers, milking equipment,
  artificial-breeding equipment, needles and
  syringes, and surgical equipment

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SANITATION

• Syringe an instrument used to give injections
  of medicine or to draw body fluids from animals.
• Use of disinfectants in working with animals is
  very important
• Disinfectant material that destroys infective
  agents such as bacteria and viruses.

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HOUSING

• Should be clean and free from cold drafts
• Good air circulation to help decrease high
  temperatures in the summer and reduce humidity in
  the winter
• Extremely dry and dusty conditions should be
  avoided whenever possible
• Proper maintenance of housing is also important
  (loose boards, roofing materials, nails, other
  junk)

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HANDLING MANURE

• Piles of manure, dirty pens and dirty feedlots
  are sources of serious health problems.
• Harbor diseases and parasites, attract flies
  which may also spread diseases
• Manure should not be allowed to accumulate.
• Continually soiled pens and cages can lower the
  quality of air breathed by animals.
• Wet, poorly drained, manure-soiled feedlots
  reduce the rate of gain in beef cattle and swine.
• Feedlots areas in which large numbers of
  animals are grown for food.

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CONTROLLING PESTS

• Regular use of disinfectants helps control lice
  and flies.
• Close observation of animals is important in
  determining and controlling outbreaks.
• A good prevention program is a wise decision.
• Control of other pests such as birds and wild
  animals is also important.
• Many birds carry parasites on their bodies and in
  their droppings
• Wild animals can chase animals and cause
  injuries, bites may cause infections or other
  health problems

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ISOLATION

• Animals may have diseases or parasites that are
  not readily apparent.
• Wise to keep them isolated from other animals for
  a period of time, usually a minimum of 30 days.
• Gives time to observe the animal for health
  problems.
• Isolation of diseased animals is also important.
• Animals with contagious diseases can spread the
  disease by contact with healthy animals.
• Difficult to treat animals when they are living
  with large groups of animals.
• Healthy animals tend to pick on unhealthy ones,
  making it difficult for sick animals to regain
  health.

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PASTURE ROTATION

• A consideration in maintaining a healthy
  environment for animals.
• Many disease organisms are harbored in the soil
  and are killed only by not being able to come in
  contact with host animals for extended periods of
  time.
• Host animal a species of animal in or on which
  diseases or parasites can live.
• Helps break the life cycle of most parasites.

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DISEASES

• Two major classes of diseases
• Contagious diseases that can be spread by
  contact.
• Mostly caused by bacteria and viruses
• Spread by direct contact with infected animals
• Non-contagious diseases that cannot be spread
  to other animals.
• Caused by nutrient deficiencies or nutrient
  excess, poisonous plants and animals, injection
  of foreign material, open wounds

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DISEASES

• Symptoms of diseases
• Poor growth and/or reduced production reduced
  feed intake rough, dry hair coat discharge from
  eyes or nose coughing or gasping for air
  trembling, shaking, shivering unusual
  discharges open sores or wounds unusual
  swelling of the body abortion.
• Abortion loss of a fetus before it is viable.

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PARASITES

• Two general categories of parasites
• Internal living inside the animal
• External living outside the animal
• Internal parasites
• Roundworms slender worms that are tapered on
  both ends.
• Flukes very small flat worms that are
  parasites.
• Protozoa microscopic one-celled animals that
  are parasites. of animals
• Secondary host a plant or animal that carries a
  disease or parasite during part of the life cycle.

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LIFE CYCLES OF COMMON INTERNAL PARASITES
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PARASITES

• External parasites
• Flies
• Ticks
• Mites
• Fleas
• Symptoms of Infestation
• Poor growth, weight loss, constant coughing and
  gagging, anemia, lowered production and
  reproduction, diarrhea or bloody feces, worms in
  feces, swelling under neck, poor stamina, loss of
  hair

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PREVENTING TREATING ANIMAL HEALTH PROBLEMS

• Number of activities and procedures to prevent
  and treat health problems
• Administering drugs
• Dipping
• Restraining animals
• Dipping the process of treating animals for
  external parasites by walking or swimming them
  through a medicated bath.
• Vaccination the injection of an agent into an
  animal to prevent disease.

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How can health problems be prevented?

• Vaccination
• Proper feeding
• Checking animals on a regular basis
• Worming
• Good husbandry practices

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What are other ways to prevent health problems?

• Take the animals temperature in the rectum.
• Determine pulse rate by placing your ear against
  the animals chest and listening to the
  heartbeat.
• Check the respiration rate by watching the
  animals ribcage for one minute and counting the
  number of breaths.
• Restrain animals to administer health care, treat
  injuries, or observe them.
• Maintain a proper vaccination program.
• Use feed additives.
• Employ veterinary services.

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Six Ways to Administer Drugs Use for Each Method

• 1. Pills
• 2. Powders
• 3. Paste
• 4. Liquids in mouth, stomach, or by injection
  into the body
• 5. Infusion
• 6. Dipping

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ADMINISTERING DRUGS

• Factors to be considered before administering
  drugs to an animal
• Amount to be administered
• Type of drug to use
• Purpose of the drug
• Site of administration of drug
• Type of animal to be treated
• Amount of time drug remains in the animal
• Most of this information can be found on the drug
  container

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ADMINISTERING DRUGS

• Drugs are manufactured and sold as pills, powder,
  paste or liquid
• Pills
• Balling gun a device used to place a pill in an
  animals throat.
• Powders
• Normally mixed in feed or water
• Paste
• Normally used for treating horses and worms
• Liquids
• Drenching a process of administering drugs
  orally to animals.

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ADMINISTERING DRUGS

• Liquids
• Injection the process of administering drugs by
  needle and syringe.
• Intravenous in a vein.
• Intramuscular in a muscle.
• Subcutaneous under the skin.
• Intradermal between layers of skin.
• Intraruminal in the rumen.
• Intraperitoneal in the abdominal cavity.

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ADMINISTERING DRUGS

• Infusion the process for treating udder
  problems through the teat canal.
• Udder the milk secreting glands of the animal.
• Teats the appendages of an udder.
• Cannula blunt needle.
• Dipping process for treating animals, mostly
  cattle, sheep and dogs for external parasites.
• Fill a vat with medicated water and force animal
  to go through
• Popular when animals must be completely covered
  with medication

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TAKING TEMPERATURES

• Animal temperatures are usually taken in the
  rectum
• Animal thermometers are normally longer and
  heavier than those used for human medicine
• Have an eye at one end with a string attached to
  it to prevent loss in the body cavity

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DETERMINING PULSE RESPIRATION RATES

• Pulse Rate
• Hold ear against the animals chest and listen to
  heartbeat
• Number of beats per minute is the pulse rate
• Respiration Rate
• Watch the animals rib cage
• Number of breaths per minute is the respiration
  rate

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RESTRAINING ANIMALS

• Head gates trap heads of large animals
• Squeeze chutes hold large animals
• Halters tied to a post to hold an animal
• Twitches hold the lip of a horse
• Nose leads holds cattle by the nose
• Casting harnesses cause animal to fall down
  with a gentle tug of a rope

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VACCINATION

• Prevention of disease is always less expensive
  than treating animals once they have the disease
• Vaccination injection of an agent such as a
  modified disease organism into an animal to
  prevent a specific disease.
• Immune an animal that is not affected by the
  disease organism.
• Veterinarian animal doctor.

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MEDICATION WITHDRAWAL

• Drugs used to medicate food animals such as dairy
  cows, poultry, hogs, beef, and sheep must be
  withdrawn before products can be used for human
  consumption.
• Requires several days for drugs to leave the
  animals system

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VETERINARY SERVICES

• Essential part of a good health program
• Important to know when to call the veterinarian
  for help or deal with the problem yourself
• Consult veterinarian when planning and executing
  disease-prevention programs
• Any time animal has reproductive problems,
  suddenly dies, or is in contact with animals with
  contagious diseases, a veterinarian should be
  contacted