Tropical Veterinary Adventure

Tachira´s University in Pregonero Town

2010-10-31T16:39:00.000-07:00

Being invited to collaborate with the UNET ofice in Pregonero Town, where The University promotes “agricultural technitians” , Roberth and I went to that location. It has improvised a classroom in the Mayoralty building in town where we can to teach the class. The room is full of excited students.

After a brief review of health plans and notifiable diseases in cattle we went to a nearby farm owned by the family of one of the students. To get there, they themselves have rented an truck, which students filled up the roof rack has been heating up the big hill from where we can see the mirror of water from the Pregonero Dam.

It's one of those small farms that I like to visit, in very simple pens we see how 16 different crossbreeding cows are milked.

At first look we note with surprise the excessive amount of ticks that have these animals and the poor body condition of calves.
- Tell me Mr. Eustoquio. how you treat the cattle against ticks?.
- Well, professor, this topic product does not help much, I do all like the deppendant in store told me. I take the same container's cap like the measure and mix it with of 20 liters of water in my back pump and I spray the 16 cows and repeat this every week and look Dr. How no more ticks is posible to fix to the cattle. They are yet full of ticks.
I try to identify the product, but it's impossible. A small aluminum bottle without label is what Mr. Eostoquio hand extend to me. I look at the size of the cap and really do not think it get more than 5 ml.
- Hear me Mr. Eustoquio. It is not known product without label. But generally these products are dosed at 1 ml per liter of water and I don't think the cap give us the amount enought. On the other hand, dip 16 cows with 20 liters of product, however well prepared, it is really insufficient. It is advisable to use 4 liters of prepared dilution per cow, you must apply it against the hair, its from the bottom to up and back to forward, ensuring good aplication. And I have to say you, if you've already been using for a long time these way, the ticks already accustomed to the product, as you have been exposed they to repeated small doses this is the perfect way for them to become resistant. In terms of frequency, here we see ticks Boophilus and against this is sufficient an effective bath every 21 days.
Upon rotation of products, we also say, do not overdo it. We recommend using a product, well prepared and well-implemented and continue to use as we will succeed. If there comes a time when there is no effective, well, we will change the active chemical. It is said that between 6 months and one year may be the length of time to deplete the effectiveness of the product.

- And another question Don Eustace: What have been applied to these calves?

The calves had dry hair, erect (hirsutism), swollen abdomen, very weak, pale mucous membranes and some diarrhea, none had fever.

At that moment appears on the scene the son of Mr. Eustoquio, and he said: - No teacher, I say you that my father has been injecting ivermectin but puts them double and triple doses and is injected intramusculary. As will be the thing that those calves went out of here "sniffing" to ivermectin.

- Well guys, let me say that it is dosed 1ml subcutaneous per 50 kg of body weight. I've never seen used intramuscular and less at such high doses. Anyway we will take blood samples and stool for processing it right here.

I like people to accompany me as our Thecnitian Roberth, I go to the backyard of Don Eustoquio and we have allready our "Laboratory in place”: microscope, centrifuge, glass material. And Roberth is explaining to students the sample processing .

After doing the analysis, I observed amazed the high parasite count of nematodes eggs that had the calves. The cows also showed infestation by nematodes and Fasciola.

Well, relying on word of these producers, we think the application form and overdose of this ivermectin was not really effective. However, we recommend the use of a product based on benzimidazole.

The aim of these practices is that students learn the importance of laboratory diagnosis in conjunction with the exploration of the animals and know that the products have some indications that must be met before saying "this product is bad."

To vary a little thing, very early the next day we went to enjoy the facilities of the Camp "La Trampa" in the dam near the town. We are country people and we like outdoors living ...

Liver fluke. Fasciola hepatica

2010-10-31T11:20:00.000-07:00

- In these area every cattle liver are damaged. Butcher says in a Venezuelan town in the Andean highlands.
- Against liver fluke can not do anything. You have to live with it. Say many cattle producers in these endemic areas.

Fasciola egg in faeces

We know that the liver fluke mainly affects ruminants, but also other herbivorous and even humans.
Its life cycle involve a snail like intermediate host, usually of the genus Lymnaea, need to obtain infective forms (metacercariae), these are attached to the leaves of the vegetation in areas partly flooded. Often get metacercariae on vegetation surrounding streams and lakes. The drinking water of animals also could have it but these cases of contamination, only represent 5% of cases, the other 95% represents the intake of contaminated grass.

Snail

It is unfortunately a common sight in these areas the herd grazing on the banks of streams, lakes or in the best cases drinking water in casks or a tire chopped in half with a hose throwing water all day and night long on the pasture.

water spill

It is also noted how the people irrigate pasture indiscriminately (already so humid). And those are the same producers who say "can not do anything" to improve the situation of parasitic diseases.

It is well known that flooded grazing pastures on the edge of streams and lakes, are conditions that promote many parasitic diseases, not only fasciolosis, in addition to numerous infections and hoof problems for our animals.

There are medicines based on albendazole, triclabendazole, clorsulon, etc, which can be administered to the animal to remove these parasites from the liver and its effectiveness is variable. However, soon reinfest if exposed to the polluted environment. It is true that it is difficult but we can not give up. I have heard of producers who have decided to move to agriculture, eliminating dairy farms.

In recently there have been livestock imports from other countries like Uruguay and Argentina. Credit programst included money for small farmers to improve their farm conditions. The projects included from stall and stables, to mechanical milking equipment, but nowhere is it noted the appropriateness of the water sources. How costly can be placed floating valve to shut off water once filled the trough? To make fences arround streams and lakes to prevent grazing of the banks? How bad is that dairy cows are kicking and feeding in a swamp? It's amazing! I repeat I do not mean just to prevent fascioliasis, but this does not give importance to the planning of improvements to the farms.

Ah! and maybe you'll hear the people say - can not install floating because the water pressure is such that the hose burst, as this comes from high in the mountains.
Well, in this respect I confess that I suffered a mild disappointment to reach the twenty-first century and not see everyone flying through the air in amazing vehicles. But more disappointing to see how many people that work with water driving, dont use pressure regulators and even they unknown it. I think it's a very old invention.
Mind you, not to be confused with a normal valves, these only regulate flow. I mean a "pressure regulator" that sold spetial for water. It can be installed easily in a level of altitude such that the end of the hose pressure is moderate. The specialized hardware sold and they are not very expensive. How much water and repairs would be saved if we used these control valves most often?. Entire communities of homes and farms suffer from many blowouts due to excessive pressure in their pipelines.

Maybe we can not eradicate this disease, but with proper medications and especially the adequacy of water sources is much we can accomplish.

I tell you in a farm of a highly endemic area of fluke, where in the drinking suplies were installed floating valves, handmade with plastic casks, I could find no fluke eggs in fecal samples.

Is for thinking it ...

Hoof problems in cows

2010-10-31T10:16:00.000-07:00

- Doctor, that cow is so lame all the time, I have already injected antibiotics and the cow continue laming. And there on the hoof is not seen nothing, however she walks. Alejandro said while pushing the cow getting little steps always showing pain in his right hind leg. Sure, with Alejandro¨s weight any walk after such a push. And is the matter that in our country it is common hoof problems are not given the importance they deserve.

Some years ago. I follow the instructions: - Reach the last stop (Oranienburg) S1 line subway in Berlin (Germany). Then take the bus Zhelendorf direction get off at Smachtenhagen Town.
Arriving at Oranienburg, a small town north of Berlin and go a few minutes to my destination, it means to pass in front of an old Nazi concentration camp, Sachsenhausen. Today is a museum and it's hard not to stop and visit to see how far can the human being when he decided to "classify" people "supporters and enemies", consider that a human group is "less" and even reach the bodies and try to dismantle industrial uses, such as hair, skin, teeth, etc.

http://www.ciao.es/opinion_images_view.php/OpinionId/1705752/Img/14008677 Schmachtenhagen is a town even smaller and still marked by the former East Germany (communism) is still common to find people who do not speak English (German and Russian only). Inmediatly I get to orders from one of these men, Herr Waligora, who although facial hard aspect that remember all that many lived in those parts, gets me very kindly and tells me how to work with jocularity there and what I will do daily. German folk food, there is all I want in the restaurant that the farm has open to the public, a great cup of coffee and the computer to learn about the system before going to the cows.

Schmachtenhagen

One of the things that caught my attention is when an espetializad team arrived for hoof treatments, a Dutch truck full of equipment: portable cattle stock, claws cutter, and more. once a month they visit the farm to the hoof trimming. And is that the Dutch technique, not in vain, is perhaps the most recognized in the maintenance of good claw health in cows.

link to this image:

http://www.klauenpflege-bayernbox.de/resources/_wsb_500x374_Klauenpflege+Bayernbox+Schwaiger+Bayern+Klauenpflegestand+220.jpg

In our contry we work a bit more rustic, we do much heavier work. Technology is not a luxury, is a necessity. Even so, we use the principles of Dutch techniques for the prevention and correction of hoof problems in cattle ...

In the pictures above, you can see a field practice with my students learning how to prevent and correct hoof problems in cattle. A little more uncomfortable than if we had a special cattle stock, that on the market reaches about $ 14,000.

Too bad is that in countries like ours, weapon budgets are more important than university budgets.

Eczematous dermatitis in cattle

2010-10-11T09:38:00.000-07:00

Cow No. 666. What a number!

The area around the town of Lobatera in Tachira State always makes me fell a special energy, those mountains something dry, something green, steady breeze, dry air. Or maybe its pre-Columbian history that takes my imagination to the indigenous villages of which only remain stones carvings and the pottery found in these locations.

Ramírez Engineer asks me a moment to visit his uncles´s farm. A large rock with petroglyphs welcomed us with the little road that will lead us to the farm. I still think that these big rock was in a horizontal position when the Indians labored, otherwise it would be very uncomfortable to have worked thus inclined. Or it may be one of those things that made our ancestral people that after thousands of years we asked us how or why were made.

Indian Stone. Lobatera. Venezuela

Arriving at the farm we noticed that the animals are part time stall feeding with hay in the afternoon and grazing in the morning. It is dry season and pastures are dry and low. The producer points out that cows have a "scab" that has been treated with avermectins without results.

After examining the cow 666 among others, I sow symmetrical lesions, a scaly eczema and hair loss in areas of the animal body. The fact that it is symmetrical speaks of something more systemic and not localized. Probably the animal is "reacting from within" against something that attacks from outside. We took a deep skin scraping for laboratory study and a whole blood sample for hematology.

Deep skin scraping is observed under the microscope for the scabies mite or fungal hyphen (dermatophitosis), however, it was imposible to demonstrate the existence of these pathogens.

The blood test showed marked eosinophilia. This means, there are many of these kind of white blood cells (eosinophils). The same with play role in allergic and parasitic processes. Eosinophil

Given these findings, We recommended a treatment based of vitamin A, antihistaminics and liver protection substances which proved to be successful.

With the arrival of rains, it was not necessary the hay and pastures feed supply changed significantly then the cases stopped.

This period of low rainfall makes grass yellow and dry for a few months. It is known that dry pastures and hay are poor in vitamin A. In these cases it is very common skin problems, epiphora and diarrhea. Also during the dry season, cattle are forced to eat plants not normally consumed (hepatotoxic effect). In addition, it is possible that mistakes in hay preservation or transport has allowed the development of microbes or arthropods that can produce allergens that lead reactions in the skin of farm animals, just as allergic reactions.

We have noted with concern the misuse of antibiotics and avermectins in animal production, including milking cows. I dare say that these two kinds of medications are commonly used in our country when the producer tries to "guess" what disease suffer their animals. It is unfortunate that in addition to be spending money unnecessarily, they are polluting the products: meat and milk for human consumption.

Scours in newborn calves

2010-10-11T09:29:00.000-07:00

It is well know like the most common causative agents of diarrhea in young calves are, among others:

Enteropathogenic or enterotoxic Escherichia coli (K99, K88, etc.)
Salmonella species
Clostridium perfringens type C
Cryptosporidium
Eimeria species
Nematodes such as Strongyloides Rotavirus
Coronavirus
Other viruses

Well, after acquiring a direct ELISA kit for diarrhea in calves (Cypress Diagnostics), my friend the engineer Luis Gonzalez and I dedicated to the task of searching and processing stool samples of young calves with diarrhea to demonstrate presence of “bugs” Kit includes: E coli K99, rotavirus, coronavirus and Cryptosporidium. In addition, the samples were practicing the Willis flotation method for light eggs as Eimeria and nematodes. It was also used in coloring of feces by the method Ziehl Neelsen for Cryptosporidium modified.
The big surprise is that we get a lot more calves with Cryptosporidium as other better know for us disease agents. The kit worked well, as indicated by positive and negative controls and the optical densities obtained, but that was the result.
Important to be noted that bacteriology cultures was not performed in the stool and also the strain of E coli tested was K99. There are reports in cattle indicate the importance of K88, which in this case was not tested. However, it shows the importance of Cryptosdporidium agent that is often not taken into account in Venezuela.

The following link leads to a summary of this initial work:

http://investigacion.unet.edu.ve/lifsa/pdf/GonzalezMoreno.pdf

After this, we have been investigating the true significance of Cryptosporidium as a cause of clinical cases of diarrhea in calves, which is reason of later publications that I will comment later.

Also important is the zoonotic nature of cryptosporidiosis, as it can affect humans, especially children and people with some degree of immunosuppression.

The water may be still contaminated by these feces and other farm or wild species feces and Cryptosporidium may be polluting the drinking water sources of our cities, taking into account that the chlorine treatment is not effective against this protozoan.

Progressive weight loss in cattle

2010-10-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

-Doctor: What can we inject this cow, is so thin?.
then I say to Mr. Juan. - Put it in the funnel stable a moment please.
I will not say much until we have reviewed general aspect, elasticity of the skin, mucous membranes, auscultated carefully and look the rectal temperature. It's funny, but when people see that I introduce the thermometer into the rectum of the animal, they finally shut his mouth. Everyone looks at the ass of the cow and remain quietly as if waiting for the ass "say something" and nobody wants to lose such thing. So but the ass really speaks. When my students understand the importance to keep a thermometer on hand when going to the country, may afford good use of that language. "

Of course, the few minutes remaining the thermometer making his important exploration of the rectal environment also gives me the opportunity to think: What's this? Let's think, in these areas are common cases of hematozoaries agents, they generally, but not in all its stages, with increases of temperature. Could it be?. Mr. Trypanosoma. is the one most often blamed but I have found many cases of anaplasmosis, but the mucous do not match, but maybe it's this or other thing ?....
Finally, I pull the thermometer well smeared with excrement (and still when I wear gloves some criticize me), the fact is that this cow does not show fever. Just something pale mucous membranes and general thinning.
And Juan insists: - but, Doctor, what we inject the cow?

I proceed to take the cow a blood sample with anticoagulant (purple cap for hematology) and a generous sampling of feces in a glove and I answer Juan with a question: - How long the cow is so?. (always is important to know if the problem is acute or chronic, ie, short or long time course). John says, - Since two months it see this way Doctor, thin. And does not gain weight, I've injected antibiotics unsuccessfully. - Well John, do not despair, if it is 2 months so, why not wait one day more? I'll take these samples to my little lab at home and tomorrow I'm calling you to give directions. Luckily today exist mobile phones.

After laboratory tests carried out is that the hematology showed nothing outstanding, only marginal hematocrit values that together with the clinical examination suggests a moderate anemia. There were no protozoa or riketsia agents in the sample (Trypanosoma, Babesia, Anaplasma) but examination of stool reveals many kinds of parasites.

By McMaster technique these eggs are found, with a count of 2500 epg (eggs per gram of feces)

and the technique of Dennis (sedimentation qualitative) shows these heavy eggs:

It is important to note that an animal may be showing progressive thinning because many different conditions ranging from infectious, parasitic, toxic and nutritional. We see how often it seems that in our country the most frequently reported, often without reason, Trypanosoma vivax, the causative agent of trypanosomosis, commonly called “huequera, cacho hueco or Cachera”.

That's why I insist so much on looking at the signs presented by the animal, especially temperature, the behavior of the disease in the herd (Epidemiology), course of illness (acute or chronic), laboratory results and, if possible, necropsy findings. Are all these things together that will guide us on the diagnosis and not only one of them.

Finally, Mr. Juan recieved the recommendations and he said: - It is true, when you yourself go to the doctor, he order laboratory tests, why not for my cows?.

Well friends, here I leave then these results to see what you think of the case.

About Bovine Respiratory Disease Complex

2010-10-11T08:47:00.000-07:00

It is possible that bovine respiratory problems do not obey exactly the etiologic agents that appear to lead this problem in the literature. It also happens that the extent of the diagnostic methods are progressing, the paradigms are changing.

On a farm north of Tachira in Venezuela seems to be important Bovine Adenovirus Type 3 associated with Mycoplasma bovis to produce such respiratory problems in calves.

Case report: Bovine Adenovirus T3 with Mycoplasma asociate

The public health vet

2010-10-11T08:29:00.000-07:00

In the field of public health, the veterinarian has been an important actor for the control of transmissible to humans diseases (zoonotic) such as brucellosis and tuberculosis. This work, conducted responsibly, is a source of satisfaction for the professional who contributes his bit for a better life for the citizens

A health visit to a small-scale livestock farm is often even more interesting than it is to a large farm. After preparing all the necessary equipment the night before, one early weak up to take the road that will lead us, not always right to the door of the farm. Maybe it's the first time I visit a particular site and do not know how it is. This time we will be carring heavy bags on our shoulders and climb mountains? or maybe our clients give us precious mules?. One thing is right. If the farm is small and far ahead, a good and hot chicken soup is waiting there or anything of these country simple cooking that these beautiful women. They always attend us in as God commands. Do not miss the Venezuelan coffee and cane sugar juice with lemon.

Since greater is the distance and difficulty, our equipment will be reduced more and more. From folding table, umbrella to avoid direct sunlight on the blood samples (and give us some comfort), folding chairs and more, can be simplified to only a backpack on shoulders and a bag of irons to mark hot numbers on cattle. My assistant complain and argue about which backpack is heavier, but here we go and he always repeated: - "Doctor, do not look up, is more tiring, look at the ground and concentrate on every step, but never look up because it will become more difficult to climb. " Perhaps a lesson for many aspects of the life ...