Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Kostoulas, P.
• Leontides, L.
• Billinis, C.
• Amiridis, G.S.
• Florou, M.

Titel

The association of sub-clinical paratuberculosis with the fertility of Greek dairy ewes and goats varies with parity

Ist Teil von

• Preventive veterinary medicine, 2006-05, Vol.74 (2), p.226-238

Ort / Verlag

Netherlands: Elsevier B.V

Erscheinungsjahr

2006

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Our cross-sectional study investigated the association of sub-clinical Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) infection with failing to produce a live offspring the season of lambing/kidding (November 2001 to January 2002) before testing (in April–May 2002), in four dairy-sheep and/or goat flocks in Greece (369 animals ≥1.5-year-old). From each selected animal 10 ml of blood and 10 g of feces from the rectum were obtained. The harvested sera were tested for antibodies to MAP with a commercial ELISA test kit; the feces were cultured on Herrold's egg-yolk medium supplemented with mycobactin J and antibiotics. An animal was considered sub-clinically infected when found either seropositive or culture positive. The true prevalence of sub-clinically infected animals, adjusted for the sensitivity and specificity of the parallel testing, was 14% (0.1–28%) and 35.9% (9.2–62.7%) in sheep and goats, respectively. The association of fertility of sheep and goats with sub-clinical paratuberculosis was investigated in random-effects logistic models. Sub-clinically infected animals (compared to uninfected) had OR for live offspring the previous year of 5.4 for parity <4, OR = 0.05 for parity >6, and a non-significant OR for the middle parity category.