Sheep disease with brads can occur during pasture and stall keeping, at any time of the year. The disease is infectious, affects goats and sheep, progresses rapidly and ends in the death of the animal. It is distributed throughout the world and causes significant damage to large farms and private farmsteads. Requires emergency measures and quarantine.
History of the discovery of infection
Translated from Norwegian, “bradzot” means “sudden illness.”The name fully reflects the speed of the course and spread of the disease, first described by Krabbe in 1875. A detailed study of the infection was carried out by the Norwegian doctor Ivar Nilsson in 1888. In the Soviet Union, bradzot was identified and described in 1929 by K. P. Andreev. The outbreak of the disease affects about 20% of the livestock; in the acute course of the infection, the mortality rate is 100%.
The causative agent of the disease
The causative agents of bradsitis are anaerobic bacteria Clostridum septicum, Clostridum oedematiens. These are gram-positive motile rods. They are resistant to boiling, exposure to chemical reagents (40-60 minutes), and are preserved for years in the soil and silt of water bodies. Bradzot is characterized by hemorrhagic lesions of the abomasum and duodenum of sheep.
The disease most often affects well-fed individuals with low mobility, regardless of gender, sheep and rams under the age of 2 years, or young animals 3-8 months old. The infection enters the sheep's body:
- with soil on pasture;
- when drinking from contaminated water bodies;
- with feces due to poor quality animal care;
- from sick animals and contaminated undisposed sheep carcasses.
Provoking factors include: hypothermia or overheating of livestock, sudden changes in diet, uncontrolled use of antibiotics when raising animals.
Do not graze animals on grass covered with frost, do not offer frozen dirty vegetables to sheep. Animals should be given water from clean running water. The disease appears at any time of the year, most often in autumn and spring. Summer outbreaks are triggered by drought.The epidemic can only affect young animals or manifest itself in adult animals.
Pathogenesis and symptoms
Clostridia are always present in the digestive tract of animals. Infected grass or water, the use of antibiotics by sheep, hypothermia or overheating provoke a rapid increase in the number of bacteria and the release of toxins that corrode the walls of the abomasum and poison the body of the sheep.
Bradzot is developing rapidly. Coming to the sheepfold in the morning, the owner may find dead animals that were well-fed and healthy just yesterday. A sheep can fall and die within 30-40 minutes.
Signs of the disease:
- Severe redness of the eyes.
- The appearance of bloody foam from the mouth, bloody discharge from the nose.
- Diarrhea mixed with blood.
- The animals are depressed and have no appetite.
- Sometimes swelling of the chest, neck and submandibular area appears.
- Chewing gum is lost.
- The gait becomes jerky.
- Urination becomes more frequent.
Animals may fall on their way to pasture. The sheep experiences convulsions and dies within half an hour. Moderate bradsitis is characterized by an increase in temperature (40.7-41 °C), frequent shallow breathing, and increased heart rate. Foam begins to flow from the mouth, and the stomach swells.
Diagnostic methods
Signs of the disease in animals may be poorly expressed; if bradzot is suspected, an anatomical study of the dead livestock must be carried out.
Sheep carcasses decompose quickly, sometimes the belly swells until the skin ruptures. Liquid mixed with blood is released from the nose, mouth, or animal. The chest and abdominal areas are filled with yellowish fluid. The trachea is filled with bloody mucus, swelling and the presence of blood are observed in the lungs.A characteristic sign of the disease is the presence of hemorrhages on the diaphragm, pleura and peritoneum. Animal corpses are disposed of completely; meat, wool or skins cannot be used. For diagnosis, tissues from the abomasum and liver are taken.
Additionally, studies are conducted to determine the presence of other infections with similar symptoms: anthrax, infectious enterotoxemia, piroplasmosis. Poisoning with aconite is ruled out.
How to properly treat bradzot in sheep
When bradsitis progresses rapidly, there is no time to carry out treatment. From the moment the first signs of the disease appear until the death of the animal, 2-6 hours pass. For moderate illness, cephalosporins, drugs to normalize cardiac activity, antitoxic and sedatives are used.
The sick sheep is isolated from the rest of the herd and placed in a separate warm pen. She needs good nutrition and access to clean drinking water.
Important: treatment is carried out by veterinary specialists. The animals are moved to stabling, and the sheepfold is disinfected.
Prevention measures
All pastures and water bodies where outbreaks of the disease have occurred are registered. To prevent the disease, the entire livestock is vaccinated. The vaccine was developed in the USSR; it eliminates the disease of the herd from bradsitis, dysentery, infectious enterotoxemia, and malignant edema of sheep.
Animals are vaccinated from 3 months of age. The vaccination is two-stage: the first dose is administered intramuscularly at the rate of 2 milliliters of vaccine per adult sheep, 1 milliliter for lambs up to 6 months. Repeated vaccination is carried out after 20-25 days, 3 milliliters are administered to adult livestock and 1.5 milliliters to lambs. Vaccinate 1-1.5 months before the flock is put out to pasture.
Do not vaccinate exhausted or sick animals. During the vaccination period, sheep are not sheared or castrated. New-age ewes are vaccinated at least 1.5 months before lambing. The vaccine is completely used after opening the vial.
The livestock is vaccinated by veterinarians with secondary or higher veterinary education. Sterile syringes are used, and the injection site is pre-wiped with alcohol. In the event of an epidemic, revaccination of the entire livestock is carried out. After vaccination, animals may develop a fever, and sheep may limp for 3-5 days on the leg into which the drug was injected.
What restrictions are introduced during quarantine?
When a farm is closed for quarantine, the sale, removal of animals from a disadvantaged area and their movement within the farm are prohibited. They do not use milk for food, do not slaughter animals, and do not cut their wool.
Sheep are transferred to stabling. Healthy animals are re-vaccinated. The corpses of sick animals, manure, and bedding are burned. The sheepfold is treated with a 3% solution of bleach or a 5% hot solution of caustic soda or a 5% solution of formaldehyde. It is necessary to apply 2 times with an interval of 1-1.5 hours and then ventilate the sheepfold. Quarantine is lifted if brads are not detected in animals within 20 days from the last case of the disease.
With proper care and maintenance of sheep, careful selection of pastures and water bodies, outbreaks of a dangerous disease can be avoided. Vaccination and conscientious work of veterinarians help preserve the livestock without losses. Compliance with quarantine measures when the disease appears allows you to avoid the spread of brads.
