Using video conferencing technology, researchers with the University of Calgary faculty of veterinary medicine found that connecting specialized pathologists with in-the-field large animal veterinarians in real time delivered a definitive diagnosis for dead cattle 98 per cent of the time.

Unassisted necropsies or post-mortems in the field only reached a definitive diagnosis 67 per cent of the time, so the video conferencing option is significantly more likely to result in a diagnosis, said lead researcher Jennifer Davies.

“Ultimately, when we reach a diagnosis in these cases, that equates to better use of producer money and veterinary resources in these investigations,” she said.

“That allows the vets to have a definitive diagnosis and evidence to make decisions on herd treatments and management. I think it shows the value of veterinary lab diagnostics as well to the producers.”

Why it matters: Making post-mortem diagnosis more widely available adds valuable data for appropriate management decisions.

The Beef Cattle Research Council-sponsored project focused on beef cattle but it could be adapted to all types of production animals, Davies said.

“I think we have a need and desire for the service. I think it would support multiple different commodities throughout the province. And right now, our lab is exploring options to move this from the research arena into a service that we can offer to veterinarians in Alberta.”

While Davies was optimistic about telepathology’s potential prior to the project, she was stunned by how effective it was.

“While I had suspected our diagnostic rate would improve through the use of this technology, I was a bit surprised just how much improvement we saw.”

Telepathology is fundamentally a response to geographical challenges. There’s a high ratio of cattle producers to veterinarian pathologists in Canada. The latter are rarely located in rural communities where they can readily perform on-site post-mortems.

Although veterinarians are trained to do routine post-mortems, pathologists provide specialization and expertise in the causes of disease and death. Post-mortem investigations can suffer without their input, said Davies.

“If we don’t understand why animals are sick and dying in Alberta, we don’t know what diseases we have here and what we don’t have here. And that leaves us open to missing new and emerging diseases.”

Another challenge is that it is frequently impractical and expensive to send whole bodies, particularly large livestock like cattle, to a lab. Telepathology offers pathologists the chance to see a body on-site while working with a vet to collect the most relevant samples.

The project had three objectives. The first was to determine if real-time pathologist assisted necropsies (RT-PAN) improved the chances of finding the cause of death compared to unassisted field post-mortems.

The second was to see whether pathologist assistance reduced the time and money involved in reaching a diagnosis.

Finally, researchers wanted to see if real-time post-mortems are useful and viable service options that could be offered to food animal vet practitioners by the diagnostic services unit (DSU) at UCVM.

The researchers used video calling to enable a pathologist at the DSU to help interpret pathology, guide collection of samples and see the site and animal as the post-mortem occurred.

The team worked with five vet clinics to collect 58 necropsies. Thirty-two were unassisted field post-mortems while the other 26 were RT-PAN. Locations were concentrated in southern Alberta mainly because the researchers targeted vet practices already using the DSU’s services, said Davies.

The challenges of using RT-PAN are largely technical. It’s highly dependent on strong communication services. This may limit use in remote areas with substandard internet access.

Even in areas with well-developed telecommunications, issues such as adverse weather conditions, poor video and audio as well as equipment challenges can create obstacles.

Davies said poor phone and internet connections are major limiting factors in some regions and there are no easy solutions. However, the team had backups in case of front-line equipment failure.

“There were certainly instances where we couldn’t necessarily establish video feed for conferencing, but perhaps cell service was still present in that area and then we could rely on phone conversations as well and that still had value.

“In the absence of having telecommunications in the area, then I think we have to go back to some of our more standard or tried-and-true methods of working with veterinarians out in the field. And that can be for them to take static images and email us digital photos of what they were seeing that helps to augment the case and our understanding.”

Another barrier is time, a limited resource for most large animal vets. However, a post-project survey of participants found they considered RT-PAN education a valuable use of time.

Respondents were also enthusiastic about the potential to build relationships between veterinarians and pathologists as well as opportunities for continuing education. The BCRC summary described both possibilities as “extremely valuable.”

Davies was surprised by telepathology’s potential for human connection.

“Both the veterinarians and pathologists at the lab reiterated on several occasions in the survey that this was a powerful tool for relationship building. And I would echo that I learned a lot from the veterinarians I worked with. I hope they learned a little bit from me as well,” she said.

“It just really showed me that when we work together in partnership as field veterinarians and pathologists, rather than working in silos, we can accomplish greater things.”

The post Video conferencing helps investigate cattle death causes appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The Simpson Centre for Food and Agricultural Policy, a think tank operating out of the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, says its three recently released reports aim at “providing a neutral and evidence-based analysis of each party and their respective election priorities for the future of the ag sector.”

The reports, it said, “are intended to be a tool for agricultural organizations and stakeholders to use as a jumping-off point for discussions in the lead-up to the Alberta elections.”

The second of the three, titled Primary Producers’ Voices on Policy in Alberta, details results from a survey of 297 Alberta farmers and their concerns on the topics of climate, spending, markets/commodities/trade and technology/research.

The demographics of the farmer respondents were broken down into categories of 18-39, 40-60 and 60 and older.

Sixty-one per cent of respondents in the 18-39 group agreed their farm has been positively affected by federal climate change regulations. The two older groups did not view the situation the same way, however, with only 56 and 23 per cent agreeing respectively.

All demographics strongly agreed investment in research for emissions reductions should be a government priority.

The responses related to spending were not as decisive. On the question of whether the Alberta government provides strong incentives for new farmers to begin their careers, 51 and 52 per cent of the 18-39 and 40-60 groups voted they agreed, while only 21 per cent of those over 60 did.

Agreement that the government should prioritize subsidizing agriculture input costs was similarly tepid, ranging from 40 to 60 per cent.

The category of markets and commodities saw more noticeable agreement, however. All demographics generally agreed upon priorities related to the topic, such as opening up in new international trade markets, ensuring fair returns for commodity producers, incentivizing Albertan commodities and investing in new processing facilities.

Likewise, in the category of technology and research, every group agreed Canadian agriculture research has benefited their farms and investment in innovation technology in Alberta should be a high priority.

There was also consensus that the government should have significant involvement in the agriculture sector.

The first report, The Role of Political Parties in Shaping Agriculture Policy, outlines the track records of Alberta’s previous United Conservative Party (UCP) and New Democratic Party (NDP) governments.

According to the report, “the NDP government funded investments in research, food safety and animal health,” whereas “the UCP government has taken a direct-investment approach with Albertan producers and decreased ministry expenses for increased capital spending.”

The report’s conclusion states the NDP has emphasized increased protection for those working on the agriculture sector, and the UCP has focused more on giving control over to agricultural workers to make decisions about their individual daily operations.

It also concludes the NDP has focused more on research and funding the ministry of agriculture, whereas the UCP has prioritized direct investments.

It also notes many similarities between the two parties, however, such as how they have both invested in agribusiness.

The third report, An Overview of Party Visions, was just released Thursday and summarizes what the parties have promised in their platforms.

Among the more significant pledges were the UCP commitment to expand the Feeder Assistance Loan Guarantee from $2 million to $3 million, and the NDP’s promises to “create an Alberta value-added incentive program to help companies access capital,” create a food incentive task force and “increase staff for services and agri-food and value-added approvals.”

More about the surveys, party history and election pledges can be found in the full reports.

— Jonah Grignon reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Ottawa.

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“This targeted enrolment funding will go towards hiring on more faculty/staff to teach the increased number of students,” Sam Blackett, press secretary for Advanced Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides, said following Tuesday’s funding announcement.

“It will also go towards purchasing additional course materials such as textbooks and/or other equipment needed to support a larger number of learners for the program.”

The new money comes as rural Alberta and its farmers and ranchers face what Finance Minister Travis Toews on Tuesday called “an emerging shortage” of veterinarians and veterinary technologists.

The Alberta Veterinary Medical Association (ABVMA) published a workforce study last year showing vacancy rates for veterinary positions as well above the provincial job vacancy average.

That report put Alberta’s vacancy rate for veterinarians at 16.7 per cent, and for veterinary technologists at 18 per cent, compared to the provincial average of 2.6 per cent.

To bridge that gap, the province aims to increase the existing number of seats in the U of C veterinary program by up to 50, which would double its current capacity.

“Agriculture is a key pillar of Alberta’s economy. That’s why it is so critical we ensure that livestock have access to the veterinary care that keeps them healthy,” Premier Jason Kenney said in Tuesday’s release.

“Alberta will be well served by this new and expanded generation of veterinarians,” ABVMA president Dr. Daren Mandrusiak said in the same release.

The new funding follows February’s capital budget commitment of $59 million over three years for animal health infrastructure at U of C — which includes money for a new facility at its Spyhill campus, more core teaching capacity at its W.A. Ranches site, and renovations at its Foothills campus.

The new facility at Spyhill will be about 7,200 square metres and include a mix of classrooms, lecture theatres, an instructional wet laboratory, administrative space and student service space.

The W.A. Ranches site will get about 1,200 square metres of space including a classroom trailer, a multi-purpose trailer, and administrative office space for academic and teaching technicians.

New animal holding facilities are also planned at that site, including penning for cattle and a Sprung tent structure, Blackett said Wednesday.

Alberta’s recent investments in veterinary programs follow its 2017 decision not to renew its funding for the University of Saskatchewan’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon, shifting that funding instead to U of C starting in 2020.

— Liam O’Connor reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Saskatoon.

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“Based on my conversations with some people in the agriculture industry — including primary producers — they would love to have a crop like this,” said University of Calgary cell biology professor, Marcus Samuel. “There’s definitely a need for something like this.”

The new cultivar’s short stature (it’s 34 per cent shorter than most canola) is intended to minimize lodging — a major selling point in itself — and the extra branches mean more flowers and pods.

“The problem with canola is that we have no control over how tall it grows,” said Samuel. “It’s usually more than a metre (high) and that makes it very prone to lodging.”

Inspired by the Green Revolution of the 1960s — which saw the breeding of shorter, more compact and nutrient-efficient varieties of rice and wheat — Samuel, grad student Matija Stanic and other researchers used CRISPR/Cas9 technology to develop this line.

They targeted a hormone called strigolactone, which is responsible for shutting down branching in the plant. They used CRISPR/Cas9 — often described as a genetic ‘scissors’ that can cut unwanted traits from the DNA of a plant — to knock out receptors that perceive strigolactone.

The gene-edited canola does not yet have a name and was never intended to be commercially developed.

Rather, it is a proof of concept and Samuel said some seed companies are interested. Such a partnership would require access to the company’s germplasm.

“We need something that the industry will actually use,” he said. “If we can get their germplasm we can cross this trait into that germplasm so we can test it out to see if there’s an increase in yield.”

The process has taken 3-1/2 years but there is more work to be done. First and foremost is determining if there are unintended side-effects.

“There could be a lot of other things that are shut down in the absence of perception of this hormone,” said Samuel. “We’re looking at where we can target branching and plant height exclusively without compromising any other things.

“Sometimes root growth might be compromised when you shut down things like that. So we’re trying to find other candidates that we can go after to duplicate what we’ve done which may be better than our current line.”

One “drawback” has been identified.

“Under extreme drought conditions where there’s complete lack of water, we see these lines being a little bit more sensitive than the unmodified control lines,” he said.

“So if we go after the other downstream candidate gene in the pathway we could exclusively target branching and the height of the plant without touching any of the other phenotypes (observable traits).”

Nevertheless, it’s groundbreaking work and could not have been produced by way of conventional breeding — at least not without luck, said Samuel.

“It’s like a microsurgery,” he said. “We used the enzyme and went into the canola cells and then made these minor snips in the genes you want to knock out.

“In this case we were knocking out the gene that is important for producing the protein that perceives this hormone. This hormone is important for shutting down branching.

“We were able to knock down all four copies of the gene in canola and that led to the highly branched plant we had anticipated.”

Traditional breeding would have required starting with a short, highly branched variety of canola “but you don’t find that in nature” unless you happen across a mutation, he said.

U of Calgary researchers have already turned their sights on other canola traits that could be improved with gene editing.

“We have a number of projects looking at shatter tolerance in canola, which is a bigger problem,” said Samuel. “We also have projects to improve seed protein content in canola. Both projects are ongoing in the lab currently.”

And although commercial varie-ties of canola created by gene editing are still years away, Samuel’s breakthrough comes only months after Health Canada — after several years of deliberation — declared gene-edited crops safe for human consumption and the environment. This is an important step for the future of gene editing in the country, said Samuel.

However, gene-edited food products still face an upward battle in terms of acceptance. They are still considered GMOs in many countries (notably China and the EU countries) even though they don’t contain any transgenic material.

“When it comes to exporting, that means we need to know what the policies of those countries are before we actually start the work,” he said.

However, Samuel is optimistic this technology will eventually gain mass acceptance.

“I can confidently say that within a couple of years you will see most people accepting it because this microsurgery we’re talking about leaves no trace of any foreign gene in there when you’re finished working with it, so it should be completely safe,” he said. “It’s very similar to a natural selection process where you get a mutant plant.”

Jeff Melchior is a contributor to the Alberta Farmer. His article appeared in the Jan. 10, 2022 issue.

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The academic system “from coast to coast is very intact,” Dr. Baljit Singh said.

“We will continue to develop new technologies. We will continue to provide new knowledge to the producers. Our education is continuing, albeit on the online platform, not in person.”

Still, Singh acknowledges the enormous challenge wrought by the pandemic. People with more experience than him have been telling him that they’ve never had to “rejig the whole system in such a short period of time,” he said.

“It has just been unprecedented.”

Why it matters: Ag research often has a seasonal or time-sensitive component and COVID-19 is hitting at a critical time for many projects. Some projects have been underway for months or years, representing a large investment of money and time. As well, the animals involved will still need care. Universities are figuring out which activities will have to be delayed, which will carry on, and how they can carry on while minimizing risk to faculty, staff and graduate students.

On the research front, universities across the country have been evaluating which research components would create a major loss to the program if cancelled, Singh said.

For example, research on COVID-19 is critical. So are the prion biology research groups in Calgary and Edmonton, which were established after BSE shuttered international borders. Calving season is underway, and so faculty members will continue collecting data for those research projects. And long-term experiments that began months ago, and require sampling from animals at specific times, would also represent a major loss if shut down.

The University of Calgary’s faculty of veterinary medicine (UCVM) has also sought input from stakeholders on research. Most of their work is in disease modelling, feedlot health services, clinical and applied research. Much of that research focuses on infectious diseases, and experimental models are typically done on-site at the university’s Spy Hill campus.

Administrators have also considered the health of staff and students at W.A. Ranches, a working ranch donated to the university for teaching and research. Singh notes that it’s hard to know who might be carrying the virus, and so they need to have “a great deal of caution.”

“So I think it’s very challenging. But I believe some of our research will keep on going,” he says.

So far, UCVM has greenlit the following projects:

• A Margaret Gunn Endowment for Animal Research-funded project set for the calving season, involving Drs. Ed Pajor, Jennifer Pearson, and Claire Windeyer.
• A Beef Cattle Research Council-funded project to develop a calf health risk assessment tool, involving Drs. Ed Pajor, and Claire Windeyer, along with a researcher at Saskatoon’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM).
• A project looking at colostrum intervention strategies in newborns and the effect of colostrum storage methods on colostrum quality. The project involves Drs. Michel Levy, Ed Pajor, Claire Windeyer and Robin Yates, along with a researcher at WCVM.
• A trial looking at optimizing calf health around weaning, and antimicrobial use in feedlots, funded by Alberta Agriculture and Food and MIF. Drs. Karin Orsel, Ed Pajor and Frank van der Meer are involved, along with researchers from University of Lethbridge, WCVM and Olds College.
• Projects at the university’s new Simpson Centre for Agricultural and Food Innovation and Public Education that focus on policy and data analysis. The university also seeks a director for the centre.

However, UCVM is also suspending some projects. For example, new experiments that can be delayed will be suspended until it’s safe to resume. So far, the delayed research includes:

• A project on the use of bacteriophage-derived lysins in combatting multi-drug resistant pathogens that cause bovine respiratory disease (Dr. Dongyan Nui).
• An experimental infection model to study pain and diagnostics in Developmental Duplication (DD)-affected beef cattle (Dr. Ed Pajor).
• A project describing beef bull behaviour using remote access technology as potential indicators of bull siring capacity (Dr. Ed Pajor).
• Dr. James Wasmuth’s lab project looking at new drugs for cattle parasites. Researchers had recently started testing new compounds. Wasmuth has also suspended his work sequencing cattle parasite genomes. However, he’s still able to continue some of his work to find more drug targets.

How will COVID-19 affect ag research in the long run? Researchers don’t yet know what type of health, animal care and research protocols they’ll have to implement, or for how long, Singh said. If the pandemic passes in the next two or three months, it will mean researchers have lost some time, but everyone will be able to get back to a normal life within the next four to five months.

But if the pandemic lingers longer, requiring prolonged social distancing, they will have to put their heads together, Singh said, to decide “what type of research of research is most critical, that can go forward under the new guidelines, circumstances, public health advisories. And what is it that we need to deliver to the producers?”

Renewed focus on food

COVID-19 has brought a renewed focus on food, Singh said, with shoppers emptying grocery store shelves, and reports of price-gouging making headlines.

We need to consider that as the pandemic has pressured the just-in-time food supply system, people have behaved as though they won’t have food in a week or two, he added.

We need to assure Canadians that during a pandemic or natural calamity, people will be able to set food on their tables every day without “disruptions, price-gouging and exploitation,” says Singh.

All levels of government need to prioritize the food production system and supply chain, and stakeholders such as producers groups need to work together to place that priority in front of political leaders, he says.

A supply of healthy food “is a fundamental priority,” Singh said. “Families, at home, they cannot go out. And their ability to make a livelihood goes down.

“I do not worry that much about three, four, five month loss of time in a research project. We can recover that…What worries me now is that this is the first time we’ve had a national pandemic story and our food supplies are under stress. We need to really do a better job at this collectively.”

For those Canadians who have questions about how the ag sector produces food, now is the time to explain how it’s done, he added. It’s time to say, “we want you to be partners with us. Not questioning and attacking the food production system in this country, but to work together to create a better food production future for everybody.”

— Lisa Guenther is the editor of Canadian Cattlemen.

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The province announced Thursday it will expand enrolment for the University of Calgary’s Veterinary Medicine program (UCVM) from 130 students currently to about 210 by 2023.

At the same time, Alberta’s minister of advanced education, Marlin Schmidt, announced the province won’t renew its participation in the WCVM’s four-province funding agreement after 2020.

The province will instead allocate $4.7 million per year to the University of Calgary’s veterinary program starting in 2020 with incremental increases of 20 seats per year, allowing Alberta’s current WCVM students to complete their studies, for savings of $3.3 million per year.

With the new funding for the UCVM, “we will now have the capacity to train all of our students right here in Alberta,” Schmidt said in a release.

“The partnership with the other provinces worked for many years, but by focusing our support on one Alberta-based program, we will achieve provincial cost savings and increase access. This will make life better for students, families and communities.”

Alberta’s decision “will certainly have an impact on the WCVM’s programs and services,” WCVM dean Dr. Douglas Freeman said in a separate release Thursday. “However, one province’s decision doesn’t erase all that we have built and accomplished together in the past five decades.”

The WCVM, which the four western provinces set up in 1963, “will continue to be Western Canada’s veterinary college, providing quality veterinary education, research and clinical expertise to the region,” he said. “We will not let the loss of support from one partner jeopardize our college’s value to all western Canadians.”

The “most immediate impact” of Alberta’s decision, he said, will be on the province’s own students. With Alberta funding new veterinary student seats only at UCVM beyond the 2019-20 academic year, he said, students from Alberta will “no longer have the choice” of completing a DVM degree at the WCVM.

The Saskatoon-based college noted it offers access to a “thriving” veterinary teaching hospital, a “diverse caseload of small and large animal patients,” specialized faculty, livestock-focused teaching and research facilities and a range of research centres on the U of S campus.

Alberta’s decision shouldn’t have an immediate impact on the Saskatoon college’s accreditation status with the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA), the WCVM said, but the loss of funding “will need to be addressed.”

Meanwhile, Freeman said, “we will be working on funding models for the college while we continue to build our programs based on our longstanding partnerships.”

Under the interprovincial agreement as it stands today, the WCVM takes 78 new veterinary students per year, with Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan each supporting 20 seats while Manitoba supports 15. Two more seats are allocated for Indigenous students through the WCVM’s education equity program and one seat is for a student from the northern territories.

For its part, the Alberta government said it expects more students and communities across the province to benefit from the Calgary program’s community-based practicum model, which connects veterinary students with rural practices to “meet labour market demand and strengthen Alberta’s agricultural sector.”

The added funding for Calgary “allows more Alberta students the opportunity to study in their home province and serve rural and remote communities,” Dru Marshall, the University of Calgary’s vice-president (academic), said in Thursday’s release.

“This investment cements the leadership role taken by the government of Alberta to specifically support its livestock industry and the public health of all Albertans.”

Baljit Singh, dean of Calgary’s veterinary medicine faculty, said the new funding “gives more Alberta students the opportunity to enter our community-embedded veterinary medical training programs and increases our capacity to graduate local veterinarians to support the province’s food animal, equine, and pet-owning communities.”

The new funding model is also expected to offer Alberta students “a number of collaborative opportunities,” noting Calgary’s partnership with the University of Alberta on a bachelor of animal science degree and on a combined masters of public health/doctor of veterinary medicine.

The labour market demand forecast for Alberta is nearly 1,100 veterinarians by 2023, the province noted Thursday.

Many WCVM graduates are already beginning their veterinary careers in Alberta communities, the Saskatoon college said Thursday, with 97 WCVM-trained veterinarians taking jobs in Alberta in the past four years, about 60 per cent of those being in mixed-animal or large-animal practices.

The WCVM noted it also today provides the entire western region with post-graduate programs, research in biomedical and veterinary sciences, clinical and diagnostic services, continuing education, public extension education and training support for veterinary technology students. — AGCanada.com Network

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Rabies is virtually always a fatal disease to all mammals, and zoonotic to humans with no curative treatment once clinical signs develop. Only prevention through vaccination and strong surveillance programs have kept incidence of rabies fairly low in Canada.

The biggest reservoirs for the disease across the country are bats, skunks, raccoons, and foxes (red and Arctic). It varies across the country, but Alberta has the most reported diagnosis in bats followed by skunks and then cats. Up north, the Arctic fox can be the source and in Ontario we have diagnosed cases in foxes, raccoons and other animals. As of April 1, 2014 (even though it is still a reportable disease for veterinarians) the federal government downloaded the responsibilities to the individual provinces. This arose suddenly out of a budgetary issue in 2012 with no consultation with our national veterinary group or other affected parties. This is called passing the buck.

There were three other diseases, federal officials either dropped or downloaded including anthrax since it is costly to deal with and is considered endemic in Western Canada. Rabies, however, is the most serious zoonotic disease as anyone — whether in veterinary medicine or agriculture, and even urban folk — are at severe risk if they come in contact with a rabid animal. Globally, rabies still kills 55,000 people annually (mainly in Africa and Asia), so it is critical we maintain surveillance to keep people, pets, and farm animals protected. Veterinary clinics will still be involved, as will the provincial medical officer of health, if there has been any human exposure, such as bites from domestic or wild animals.

Everyone needs to be on the lookout for animals exhibiting abnormal behaviour including aggression, varying forms of paralysis (including inability to swallow), and excessive salivation. Lethargy, vomiting, and anorexia (not wanting to eat) are non-specific signs we can observe with rabies. Other signs can include incessant bellowing in cattle. If clinical signs develop, affected animals will die within 10 days.

Veterinary clinics may be involved, especially in isolated areas of the province, to facilitate this process. If you are suspicious of these clinical signs contact your local veterinary clinic, as they become your first line of defence.

Keep in mind rabies is very rare and many other diseases can mimic it. If any of the clinical signs listed above are seen by veterinarians, rabies is always on the differential list. Cows for instance with wooden tongue or a choke will salivate excessively, and these are two conditions that are treatable yet could at first glance indicate rabies. Likewise horses with choke salivate profusely.

Just because we haven’t heard of it or diagnosed it in a while doesn’t mean it isn’t around. Years ago, a client found a bat alive in daylight hours on his lawn acting very peculiar and unable to fly. It was submitted and was positive for rabies.

Since bats are the main reservoir in many areas, it is always advisable to vaccinate dogs and cats. In other areas of the country, such as Manitoba and Ontario, horses and even cattle are vaccinated in high-risk areas (or if they are going to be moved to high-risk areas).

There are two forms of rabies — the furious form or the paralytic form. Horses, cattle, and bats generally get the paralytic form; cats the furious form; and dogs can get either form. (Do you remember the movie “Old Yeller,” which vividly showed the aggressive form in a dog?)

The World Health Organization categorizes rabies exposure at three different levels.

The first is touching or licking from a rabid animal on intact skin. It is NOT considered exposure to rabies.

The second and third categories range from minor scratches to full depth bites and licks on broken skin. These are considered a potential exposure to rabies and where you would first get medical care and follow the guidance of the public health officer.

We are lucky in Canada because with good surveillance and vaccination of most of our pets the incidence of rabies has been kept quite low. Alberta’s famous rat patrol not only keeps rats out of the province, but does the same for skunks in the southeast of the province where the rabies incidence is higher. Saskatchewan has had cattle and horses with rabies (especially in the southern part of the province) and provincial authorities there look after surveillance (similar to what happens in Alberta). Watch in your particular region of Canada for guidance from the Office of the Chief Provincial Veterinarian.

Each province may implement it slightly differently, but the overall result should be the same. Provincial medical officers, veterinary clinics, and provincial governments all work together to monitor and keep the incidence of rabies low in Canada.

I always thought with all reportable diseases that practising veterinarians have an obligation to report to the federal veterinary authorities (CFIA) as they took the responsibility over and were the final authority. Apparently they still want to be notified or reported to. It is just they are passing the work responsibility over to the provinces.

Get a salivating animal, one acting abnormally, or showing signs of ascending paralysis checked by your veterinarian. If rabies is suspected they will know what to do.

People who might have been exposed to rabies through a bite or scratch from an animal should seek medical attention and also call Health Link at 1-800-408-5465.

Let’s work together to keep rabies a very rare event in Canada and ensure all inhabitants — people, domestic animals, production animals and wildlife — are safe. (As a side note, birds, amphibians, and reptiles can’t get rabies — and rodents only very rarely.) Watch the news for further developments. For those especially interested, there is an international conference on rabies at the University of Calgary Veterinary Medicine in October.

Everyone — including livestock producers, pet owners, wildlife officers, public health officials, and veterinarians — need to be ever vigilant for the possibility of rabies appearing. Just as this article has gone to press a positive rabid skunk was detected in southern Alberta. It’s the first since 1994 and this discovery shows that surveillance is working.

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For years, farmers have justified the way they manage and house animals based on objective measures of their health: disease prevalence, growth rates and feed consumption.

Consumer research, however, shows that’s not good enough for them, says Dr. Ed Pajor, Anderson-Chisholm Chair in Animal Care and Welfare and professor of animal welfare at the University of Calgary.

Pajor was the keynote speaker at the recent annual Campbell Centre for Animal Welfare research symposium at the University of Guelph.

There has been a lot of work on figuring out what consumers think of animal agriculture and there’s no doubt that it’s changed.

Pajor shared Dr. Jeff Spooner’s research at the University of Calgary from 2014. It showed consumers have a strong preference for a natural environment for animals, concerns about pain in production systems and an opposition to the singular focus on animal health at the expense the animals living a “natural” life.

He told any veterinary students in the audience to keep that in mind.

“Consumers are concerned about pain and suffering. They don’t understand housing systems, but pain and suffering they get,” he said.

Farmers, on the other hand have a different opinion. They recognize and acknowledge that some of their practices might cause pain, but they have regulatory or marketing reasons for them.

Take branding, for example. Beef farmers know it causes some pain, but in some areas they are required to do it for identification purposes.

Few beef farmers have traditionally used pain mitigation for castration or hot branding, but Pajor said products have gotten cheaper and easier to give to animals and more farmers are using them. Researchers recently had a challenge finding beef farmers who did not use pain mitigation for a study.

How has the livestock sector responded to changing consumer questions about what they do?

“There are a whole range of standards,” said Pajor, such as the Canadian Feedlot Animal Care Assessment Program and the dairy proAction program.

However, the growth of broader sustainability programs, he said, could have a greater influence. These are programs created and driven by multiple buyers in the supply chain. They include the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, the Sustainability Consortium and the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform.

Unilever, one of the world’s largest food manufacturers, has its own sustainable agriculture code.

“They expect the supply chain to make producers accountable for animal welfare,” said Pajor.

Consumer trends on animal welfare are also influencing how researchers look at animal welfare.

“Animal welfare has expanded to include a broad range of scientific disciplines,” he saiod. Researchers in immunology, social science, economics and genomics may all now be involved in animal welfare research.

“The emphasis will be on emotional states of animals, positive states. Surely we can do more than just alleviate suffering.”

In that vein, animal welfare research has moved from maintaining health, to managing pain, a barrier to the animal’s happiness. The challenge is how to measure and analyze different emotional states.

One of the popular areas of research in animal welfare is “grimace scales” — numerous pictures of the face of animals, enabling researchers to determine comfort or pain.

Pajor called them the “hot, new thing. It is a good tool. It’s a start, but there are a lot of challenges and it’s not quite that simple.”

The drivers of change will continue to increase, he said, and that will mean opportunities for researchers who are able to see them.

“Never forget that animal welfare is about the animal and understanding the animal. We need to do that, but we need different approaches to it.”

— John Greig is a field editor for Glacier FarmMedia based at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him at @jgreig on Twitter.

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The bovine species appears to be fairly susceptible to developing infection, with the incidence increasing when calves are born into wet or damp conditions and in close confinement. With more producers calving later — many times on grass — calves are spread out in a drier environment and that alone has greatly decreased the incidence of navel infection.

Other methods for preventing navel infection are ensuring colostral intake is high to boost the calves’ resistance and, in some cases, using long-acting prophylactic antibiotics prescribed by veterinarians for herds where the incidence is higher than normal.

As a rule, we have a higher incidence in purebred herds where they calve early and when calves are cycled through a warm barn. This environment will allow foot rot and other types of organisms to accumulate over time.

It’s best to have a calving area, which can be disinfected easily, and only bring through those cows that really need assistance. Ideally, the calving maternity pen should have a cement floor and a drain so the area can be cleaned and disinfected easily after each use. I can’t stress enough the importance of having lots of bedding in the calving and post-calving areas and keeping the barns clean by using lots of fresh bedding. The extra work and cost will yield fewer diseases like navel infection.

Over the years I have tried many things to prevent this problem, even using human umbilical clamps (but I found they caused more problems than they prevented). One thing veterinarians have recognized with caesarean sections is that navel infection rates are higher. There is no stress on calves during a caesarean incision unless the intervention was delayed or a major attempt was made at pulling the calf. With a caesarean delivery, the calf is essentially coming out backwards and the navel cord rips off very close to the body (very similar to a normal backwards calf). The calf needs the long protective shroud of the umbilicus to prevent infection from wicking up inside.

There are a couple of ways to prevent this. At our clinic, when the calf is coming out through the incision, we grab and physically break the protective shroud quite a distance from the navel (12 to 16 inches). This is about the natural distance where the umbilicus breaks off.

Dr. Gordon Adkins at the University of Calgary’s faculty of veterinary medicine has a different method, which is equally effective, and a more natural recreation of the real event. As the calf is coming through the incision he pulls the entire umbilicus back between the back legs. This exactly mimics how the umbilicus breaks off in a normal delivery and he has had great success at this. Success meaning the umbilical shroud is intact and more than a foot long. This definitely prevents infection from wicking up inside.

I would recommend that if a caesarean section is required, mention this to your veterinarian. Both these methods are easy to do and will greatly decrease the incidence of navel infection in these calves.

If the navel still breaks off short or the calf flops out of the incision before this can be done, then perhaps put them on prophylactic antibiotics. With short navels this is one incidence where I recommend possibly disinfecting the navel area. Just make sure and use something recommended by your veterinarian that is not too harsh. Strong iodine solutions, for instance, cause more inflammation actually worsening the condition. This is one reason why we don’t recommend any routine treatment directly on the navel.

Our next issue to tackle is backwards-presented calves which, as you may guess, rip off short as well. Generally these births are being assisted, but the question is, how do we break off the shroud internally without breaking the vessels, as the calf still has to be delivered? That is a question for the future as these backwards calves may have delayed deliveries, sometimes lack oxygen, and are slower to rise and suckle — all factors predisposing them to navel infection.

Remember too that with a high percentage of twin births that one calf is often backwards. Twins have the challenge of sharing the available colostrum. Will both twins mother up or will you graft a twin onto another cow? All these stresses also make them more prone to navel infection, scours, pneumonia et cetera, and for that reason are often supplemented with extra colostrum.

Whether it is calves that are lost or develop joint infections and must be put down or calves with a slight pus discharge from the area, all are losses to the beef industry. The calves with lingering infections have poorer weight gains and some yearling bulls have developed infections in their secondary sex glands (seminal vesiculitis) from navel infection rendering them infertile. All of these are good reasons to try and keep navel infections down on your farm.

I will keep you posted if we find a way to break the navel shroud internally on those backwards calves. In the meantime, I would recommend talking to your veterinarian about prophylactic antibiotics on those backwards calves or any with the navel ripped off short. Closely examine the navel cord on newborn calves to see what I mean. In some herds with higher incidences, veterinarians prescribe antibiotics at birth to help prevent navel infections.

So have a great calving season with the minimum of problems and a very low death rate. And let’s keep navel infection to a minimum.

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Anna Zuliani, previously a graduate student in veterinary medicine at the University of Calgary (UCVM), recently published a paper on how geographical distribution of biting midges relates to the disease cycle in different wild and domestic animals.

According to the paper, published in the online journal PLOS One, wild and domestic animals in Canada are at higher risk of disease as biting midge are likely to make their way northward from the U.S. due to climate change.

Bluetongue and epizootic haemorrhagic disease (EHD), spread by biting midge, so far are endemic in the U.S. but turn up “only sporadically” in livestock and wild animals in Western Canada, the university noted.

Bluetongue, previously seen in Canadian cattle only in British Columbia’s Okanagan valley, turned up in August and September in three cattle in southwestern Ontario’s Chatham-Kent municipality, leading several of Canada’s trading partners to cancel export certificates for live Canadian cattle and/or genetics.

“The midge is a key actor in disease transmission,” Zuliani said in a Calgary release. “The presence of the midge at northern latitudes is likely to increase the probability of haemorrhagic disease in wild and domestic ruminants.”

Zuliani and the other researchers used 50 “presence points” for the midge (Culicoides sonorensis) collected in Montana and south-central Alberta between 2002 and 2012, along with monthly climatic and environmental predictors, to develop a series of “maximum entropy distribution models.”

By studying the geographical distribution of the midge and how it relates to the disease cycle in different animals, Zuliani and the team could predict an increase in risk of disease spreading.

The team’s projections showed the areas predicted to be at “moderate-high” probability for biting midge occurrence would increase from the baseline scenario to 2030, and again from 2030 to 2050, for each “representative concentration pathway” studied.

The projection also showed the northernmost limit of biting midge distribution is expected to move northward during that time to above the 53rd parallel — that is, up around communities such as The Pas, Man., Prince Albert, Sask., and Edmonton.

“Knowing the current and potential future distribution of the disease vector will help setting up a cost-effective disease surveillance plan in the province,” said Zuliani, now in PhD studies at Italy’s University of Udine.

Such modeling, she said, “will help farmers to identify risk early, allowing measures to be put in place to prevent severe disease outbreaks and reduce their connected economic cost.”

Recent observations of midge-borne EHD outbreaks in northern Montana and southern Alberta “supported our projections and considerations,” the research team said in their paper.

Data from the model as developed has also been used by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to help predict risk to cattle across the Prairies, the university said.

“This paper will inform policy with regard to vector-borne diseases and climate change in North America and we hope that it will be well worth citing in years to come,” Susan Cork, head of UCVM’s ecosystem and public health department and a co-author of the paper, said in the same release. — AGCanada.com Network

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