Emergency care and managing toxicoses in the exotic animal patient.

The poisoned exotic veterinary patient remains a significant challenge to the clinician. A patient presenting with the history of exposure to a toxin or poison should be considered to have a potentially life-threatening problem. This article details the ABCs of emergency medicine including fluid therapy and discusses the principles of neurologic management. The last part of the article provides the clinician with guidelines for decontamination and critical care management of some of the more common toxicoses in exotic animals.     

Carcase and meat quality in broilers either killed with a gas mixture or stunned with an electric current under commercial processing conditions

1. Carcase and meat quality were evaluated under commercial conditions in 400 broilers either killed with a mixture of 30% carbon dioxide and 60% argon in air or stunned with a 50 Hz AC with clipped sine wave.

2. Compared with electrical stunning, killing broilers with the gas mixture eliminated or substantially reduced the prevalence of carcase and meat quality defects.

3. The results also showed that killing broilers with a mixture of 30% carbon dioxide and 60% argon would enable filleting (deboning) to be performed at 4 h post mortem without adversely affecting the cook loss or texture of breast meat.     

Live weight, body size and carcass characteristics of young bulls of fifteen European breeds

A total of 436 young bulls from fifteen Western European breeds, including beef, dairy and local types from five countries, were studied to assess variability in live weight, live weight gain, body measurements and carcass traits. Animals were logged indoors, and fed a diet based on concentrate and straw offered ad libitum from 9 months of age to slaughter at 15 months of age. The weight, body length, height at withers and pelvis width, of the animals were recorded at 9, 12 and 15 months of age. After slaughter, 15 carcass variables were recorded, including carcass weight, EU classification scores, morphological measurements and dissection data. Data were analysed by GLM, regression and principal component analysis procedures.Significant differences were found between breeds for all variables studied, however, the body size measurements and the carcass traits were more useful to discriminate among cattle breeds, than either live weight or daily gain. With respect to the body size and carcass traits the studied breeds could be grouped as:

– Specialized beef breeds, comprising Piemontese, Asturiana de los Valles, Pirenaica, Limousin, South Devon, Charolais and Aberdeen Angus, all of which were characterized by high muscularity, wide pelvis and medium height and a low to medium level of fatness.

– Local and dairy breeds, comprising Jersey, Casina, Highland, Holstein and Danish Red, the latter two breeds were tall animals, while the former three breeds were small in size. In general the group was poorly muscled and tended to have a high or medium level of fat.

– Intermediate group, Avileña, Marchigiana and Simmental: these breeds were characterized by an intermediate muscle conformation and fatness level and were relatively tall.

This study provides a detailed assessment or a wide range of variables in the major breeds, and several minor breeds, that are used in breeding programmes across Europe and elsewhere, and will provide information that will be of use to define breeding strategies to meet the demands of the European beef market.     

Impact of a catastrophic hurricane on island populations

Lizard and spider populations were censused immediately before and after Hurricane Lili on islands differentially affected by the storm surge. The results support three general propositions. First, the larger organisms, lizards, are more resistant to the immediate impact of moderate disturbance, whereas the more prolific spiders recover faster. Second, extinction risk is related to population size when disturbance is moderate but not when it is catastrophic. Third, after catastrophic disturbance, the recovery rate among different types of organisms is related to dispersal ability. The absence of the poorer dispersers, lizards, from many suitable islands is probably the result of long-lasting effects of catastrophes.     

High‐Throughput Near‐Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy for Predicting Quantitative and Qualitative Composition Phenotypes of Individual Maize Kernels

Near‐infrared reflectance (NIR) spectroscopy can be used for fast and reliable prediction of organic compounds in complex biological samples. We used a recently developed NIR spectroscopy instrument to predict starch, protein, oil, and weight of individual maize (Zea mays) seeds. The starch, protein, and oil calibrations have reliability equal or better to bulk grain NIR analyzers. We also show that the instrument can differentiate quantitative and qualitative seed composition mutants from normal siblings without a specific calibration for the constituent affected. The analyzer does not require a specific kernel orientation to predict composition or to differentiate mutants. The instrument collects a seed weight and a spectrum in 4–6 sec and can collect NIR data alone at a 20‐fold faster rate. The spectra are acquired while the kernel falls through a glass tube illuminated with broad spectrum light. These results show significant improvements over prior single‐kernel NIR systems, making this instrument a practical tool to collect quantitative seed phenotypes at high throughput. This technology has multiple applications for studying the genetic and physiological influences on seed traits.     

Three scales of temporal resolution from automated soil respiration measurements

Soil respiration (R_s) is a combination of autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration, but it is often modeled as a single efflux process, influenced by environmental variables similarly across all time scales. Continued progress in understanding sources of variation in soil CO₂ efflux will require development of R_s models that incorporate environmental influences at multiple time scales. Coherence analysis, which requires high temporal frequency data on R_s and related environmental variables, permits examination of covariation between R_s and the factors that influence it at varying temporal frequencies, thus isolating the factors important at each time scale. Automated R_s measurements, along with air, soil temperature and moisture were collected at half hour intervals at a temperate forest at Harvard Forest, MA in 2003 and a boreal transition forest at the Howland Forest, ME in 2005. As in other temperate and boreal forests, seasonal variation in R_s was strongly correlated with soil temperature. The organic and mineral layer water contents were significantly related to R_s at synoptic time scales of 2–3 days to weeks, representing the wetting and drying of the soils as weather patterns move across the region. Post-wetting pulses of R_s were correlated with the amount of precipitation and the magnitude of the change from pre-wet-up moisture content to peak moisture content of the organic horizon during the precipitation events. Although soil temperature at 8–10 cm depth and R_s showed strong coherence at a 24-h interval, calculated diel Q₁₀ values for R_s were unreasonably high (6–74) during all months for the evergreen forest and during the growing season for the deciduous forest, suggesting that other factors that covary with soil temperature, such as canopy assimilatory processes, may also influence the diel amplitude of R_s. Lower diel Q₁₀ values were obtained based on soil temperature measured at shallower depths or with air temperature, but the fit was poorer and a lag was needed to improve the fit (peak R_s followed peak air temperature by several hours), suggesting a role for delayed substrate supply from aboveground processes to affect diel patterns of R_s. High frequency automated R_s datasets afford the opportunity to disentangle the temporal scales at which environmental factors, such as seasonal temperature and phenology, synoptic weather events and soil moisture, and diel variation in temperature and photosynthesis, affect soil respiration processes.     

Demographics of cattle positive for Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis by faecal culture,from submissions to the Cork Regional Veterinary Laboratory

The demography of bovine infections caused by Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) in Ireland is poorly defined. The objective of this study was to describe the demographics of cattle positive to MAP on faecal culture, based on submissions to the Cork Regional Veterinary Laboratory (Cork RVL) from 1994 to 2006. The study focused on all available faecal samples from adult cattle with non-responsive chronic diarrhoea that were submitted by private veterinary practitioners to Cork RVL for MAP culture. For each MAP-positive by faecal culture animal, data were collated from Cork RVL and Cattle Movement Monitoring Scheme (CMMS) records. Johne's disease (JD) was confirmed in 110 animals from 86 herds by the Cork RVL between 1994 and 2006, with a rate of positive cases between 15% and 18% over last four years of the study. Two breeds (Holstein/Friesian or Limousin) made up 78% of submissions. Movements were assessed for the 57 study animals with available movement information, 90% died within one year of the test and 26% tested positive in the herd they were born into. The study provides preliminary information about movement trends and demographics of animals with MAP positive submissions. Although the study area is restricted, it includes the most intensive (and economically-important) dairy region in Ireland. The demographics of JD infection from the study area are in agreement with international reports. Further work is required to determine demographic trends, incidence and prevalence of JD throughout Ireland. It is hoped this work may contribute to the development of a surveillance strategy for MAP by regional veterinary laboratories.