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Effect of the interval between shearing and dipping on the spread of Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis infection in sheep
Author(s) -
PATON MW,
BULLER NB,
ROSE IR,
ELLIS TM
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
australian veterinary journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.382
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1751-0813
pISSN - 0005-0423
DOI - 10.1111/j.1751-0813.2002.tb12473.x
Subject(s) - corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis , caseous lymphadenitis , shearing (physics) , veterinary medicine , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , medicine , bacteria , materials science , genetics , composite material
Objective To determine whether the spread of Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis infection to sheep in dips could be controlled by increasing the time between shearing and dipping. Design Animals and procdure One hundred and ninety‐five sheep were found to be negative for C pseudotuberculosis exposure by assay of CLA toxin antibody, were divided into four treatment groups. Each was shorn at either 0, 2, 4 or 8 weeks before dipping in a solution containing C pseudotuber‐culosis . Blood samples were taken 6 weeks after dipping and sheep were slaughtered 12 weeks after dipping. A fifth smaller group of 14 sheep shorn 26 weeks before dipping, was also exposed to C pseudotuberculosis and was slaughtered with the other sheep. Results The occurrence of caseous lymphadenitis abscesses did not differ between groups or with sheep shorn 26 weeks before dipping. The proportion of sheep that sero‐converted to the C pseudotuberculosis toxin and cell wall ELISA was larger in sheep dipped immediately after shearing than in sheep in the other groups. Conclusions Delaying dipping until 8 weeks after shearing did not decrease the C pseudotuberculosis infection rate due to dipping. Sheep dipped immediately after shearing developed higher concentrations of antibody to C pseudotu‐berculosis than sheep when dipping occurred between 2 and 8 weeks and later after shearing.