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Research on diseases of beef cattle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2010

J. M. Payne
J. M. Payne
Affiliation:
Institute for Research on Animal Diseases, Compton, Newbury, Berkshire, RG16 ONN
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Abstract

The importance of disease as a limiting factor in beef production may be highlighted by the problem of calf disease, where mortality as high as 5% may be considered as ‘acceptable’ and even 10% being ‘not unusual’. It is sad to think of passive acceptance of this undesirable situation, but there is ample support for the statistics quoted. The Ministry of Agriculture Calf Wastage Survey (Leech, Macrae and Menzies, 1968) recorded average losses of between 5 and 6% in the first 10 days of life. Some estimates suggest losses as high as 9% before 6 months of age which, on a national scale, presumably indicates a loss of 260 000 calves annually. Important though this is, wastage of calves is not the only source of loss—there are also diseases of the cow and mature fattening stock to be taken into account. Other surveys of wastage draw attention to the importance of these. However, it would be misleading to present a picture of gloom. Rather this paper will describe advances and successes due to veterinary research and also draw attention to new ways ahead which seem to be opening.

Type
57th Meeting, University of Reading, 10 to 13 September 1973: Report of Meeting on Productivity and Health
Information
Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Production (1972) , Volume 3 , January 1974 , pp. 21 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © British Society of Animal Production 1974

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References

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