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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 May 2016
Bloat in ruminants is a digestive disorder arising from an abnormal distension of the rumen with gas, and may prove fatal. It is termed chronic when protracted due to physiological disorders and acute when transitory due to feed factors (Cole et al., 1945). Bloat in grazing ruminants is recognised as acute, although the chronic condition at pasture is known (Lyons, 1928). Acute bloat may result from a frothy admixture of gas and ingesta, or from free gas in the rumen (McIntosh, 1941).
The incidence of bloat is world-wide. It is reported most frequently in association with grazing highjy productive pastures and its unpredictability and rapid onset seriously hamper animal and pasture husbandry.