Laboratory diagnostic examinations as part of «Pathocalf» in case of herd problems on Swiss calf rearing and fattening farms

Lüthi, K.; Bähler, C.; Overesch, G.; Kaske, M. (2021). Laboratory diagnostic examinations as part of «Pathocalf» in case of herd problems on Swiss calf rearing and fattening farms. Schweizer Archiv für Tierheilkunde, 163(7/8), pp. 493-503. Gesellschaft Schweizer Tierärztinnen und Tierärzte 10.17236/sat00310

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«PathoCalf» represents a project promoted by the Swiss Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office. It was the aim of this project to use laboratory diagnostic services for farms raising calves (dairy farms, fattening units, beef cow operations) and dealing with a herd health issue in order to obtain an overview about the spectrum of infectious agents and bacterial resistance patterns in Switzerland. From January 2015 to March 2018, the Bovine Health Service and the farm veterinarian straightened out 148 stock problems on 125 farms. For this, samples were collected from 342 animals. In addition, 98 necropsies were performed. The service related to «PathoCalf» was utilized most frequently related to stock problems with respiratory disease (40,5%; 60/148), gastrointestinal disease (37,2%, 55/148) and fatalities with unknown causation (8,8%, 13/148). The majority of all investigated animals (71,8%) were younger than 10 weeks of age. In calves suffering from respiratory disease, most frequently Pasteurella (P.) multocida was found (40,6%, 67/165), followed by mycoplasmen (35,8%, 59/165) and Mannheimia (M.) haemolytica (13,3%, 22/165). The proportion of tested P. multocida and M. haemolytica strains being resistant against oxytetracyline was 67,7% (42/62), 21,1% (4/19) for tilmicosine and 11,3% (7/62) for danofloxacine. For calves suffering from gastrointestinal problems, most frequently Rotavirus (57,6%, 19/33), E. coli (47,7%, 74/155) and Campylobacter spp. (27,7%, 43/155) were found. A resistance against tetracycline was evident for 95,0% (19/20) of all isolated E. coli, and for 80,0% (16/20) in respect to sulfonamides and for 57,1% (12/21) against enrofloxacine. For fatalities with unknown causation, a perforated abomasal ulcer was the most important finding (33,3%, 7/21), followed by diarrhea (28,6%, 6/21) and indigestion related to ruminal acidosis (19,1%, 4/21). The results indicate that aetiological investigations facilitate the evaluation of stock problems. The systematic assessment of abiotic risk factors remains, however, indispensable for the factorial diseases most frequently found on farms raising calves.

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