Ewes Direct Most Maternal Attention towards Lambs that Show the Greatest Pain-Related Behavioural Responses.

Although neonatal farm animals are frequently subjected to painful management procedures, the role of maternal behaviour in pain coping, has not been much studied. We investigated whether ewes were able to distinguish between lambs in pain and those that were not, and whether their behaviour altered depending on the severity of lamb pain. Eighty male lambs were allocated to one of 4 pain treatments within 24 hours of birth.

The feasibility of testing whether Fasciola hepatica is associated with increased risk of verocytotoxin producing Escherichia coli O157 from an existing study protocol.

The parasite Fasciola hepatica is a major cause of economic loss to the agricultural community worldwide as a result of morbidity and mortality in livestock, including cattle. Cattle are the principle reservoir of verocytotoxigenic Escherichia coli O157 (VTEC O157), an important cause of disease in humans. To date there has been little empirical research on the interaction between F.

Replicating disease spread in empirical cattle networks by adjusting the probability of infection in random networks.

Comparisons between mass-action or "random" network models and empirical networks have produced mixed results. Here we seek to discover whether a simulated disease spread through randomly constructed networks can be coerced to model the spread in empirical networks by altering a single disease parameter - the probability of infection. A stochastic model for disease spread through herds of cattle is utilised to model the passage of an SEIR (susceptible-latent-infected-resistant) through five networks.

Genetic analysis of atypical progesterone profiles in Holstein-Friesian cows from experimental research herds.

The objective of this study was to quantify the genetic variation in normal and atypical progesterone profiles and investigate if this information could be useful in an improved genetic evaluation for fertility for dairy cows. The phenotypes derived from normal profiles included cycle length traits, including commencement of luteal activity (C-LA), interluteal interval, luteal phase length. and interovulatory interval.