What Diseases Affect Farm Animals?
Pets are vulnerable to a number of factors that make them prone to health problems. Some are due to poor nutrition; others are caused by infectious agents. In this article, we will refer to which diseases affect farm animals .
What are the diseases affecting farm animals?
Diseases of ruminants
Bacterial diseases affecting ruminants are:
- Bovine tuberculosis, which is distinguished by being a zoonosis. Bovine tuberculosis is quite aggressive in extensive farming, both in pasture and in the mountains, due to its relationship with the disease-carrying wildlife.
- Brucellosis, particularly relevant in sheep. It stands out for being a zoonosis with serious consequences for humans.
Viral diseases affecting ruminants are:
- Infectious bovine rhinotracheitis and bovine viral diarrhea. The seriousness of these diseases does not lie in their lethality, but in the problems generated by the commercial exchange of the affected animals.
- Bluetongue – also known as bluetongue – is a disease that mainly affects sheep.
Diseases of birds
- Salmonellosis. It has the distinction of being the second most common food poisoning in our country, due to the consumption of eggs and other products of animal origin. But thanks to the efforts of the authorities, its presence in consumer birds has been significantly reduced.
- Avian flu. It was considered eradicated a few years ago, but some relatively recent outbreaks have been detected. The detection of these new outbreaks is an example of the effectiveness of maintaining surveillance measures once a disease is considered eradicated.
Diseases of pigs
- Aujeszky’s disease. So far there has been some success in eliminating this disease from domestic herds. However, it remains present in 25% of animals. In this way, the risk of transmission is still present.
What diseases are affecting farm animals today?
One of the diseases that the national authorities are currently worried about is the plague of small ruminants. It is not yet present in Europe, but in neighboring countries such as Morocco.
Another disease that should be mentioned would be West Nile fever: it is a zoonosis, found in the Iberian Peninsula and present on the Mediterranean side that affects both birds and horses.
Can diseases that have already been eradicated reappear?
For many years, many of the diseases affecting farm animals have failed to eradicate.
Later, with the advancement of medical research and technology and thanks to the efforts of authorities and farmers, some of them were eradicated. For this reason, it is good to always maintain a certain degree of surveillance, in most cases, depending on the risk of reappearance.
