Picture 1 (above): The common clinical sign shown by Cattle infected with Lumpy jaw.

A frequent cattle consult throughout the majority of the year is an animal that presents for swellings/ large lumps of the lower jaw. Most commonly the disease process going on here has been termed ‘Lumpy jaw’. Here there has been an insult to the inside of the mouth from fibrous material (rough grass/hay/sticks etc.) that have caused damage to the mucosa inside the mouth to which a bacteria called actinomyces thrives and invade. Over the coming weeks to months this area will become more infected, the infection then penetrates into deeper tissues, lymphatics and eventually the jawbone.

This is what vets call an ‘osteomyelitis’ (infection of the bone). As the disease progresses further, the bone is eaten away by the infection and the animal will eventually lose its ability to chew and therefore lose condition. In most cases have to be euthanised.

The key to avoiding this undesirable outcome is to act promptly once any clinical signs develop. Like any disease the sooner a producer gets a veterinarian involved, the sooner the issue can be fixed. If this disease if left untreated the animal will suffer and reach a point where the disease is untreatable.

Moral of the story; a thorough examination of all animals frequently even just in the paddock will most likely avoid this disease developing to a point where it cannot be treated. Here we would love producers to be looking for animals with swellings under the jaw, excessive saliva coming from the mouth and even a loss of condition.

Picture 2: Top; Normal jaw bone. The bottom of the picture shows the jawbone of the cow that has been infected with ‘lumpy jaw’.

Wooden tongue is a lay term for the disease called ‘Actinobacillosis’. It like Lumpy Jaw is a disease of the oral cavity. Like the name suggests, the tongue becomes like wood (hardens). Much like the lumpy jaw information previously mentioned, as the disease progresses the animal loses the ability to chew and swallow; leading to the animal losing condition and eventually dying or having to be euthanised.

The common ground that these two diseases share is that they are caused by bacteria from the same family. The most common clinical sign to look for is a cow with excessive saliva production, swelling under the jaw and the tongue slightly protruding from the mouth. The reason for this is that the tongue swells significantly as the disease progresses. In terms of treatment if the diseased animal is identified early in the disease process it can be successfully treated. Don’t wait to ‘See how it goes’.
The last point to make is that this disease can also affect sheep. In sheep however it is more common for them to develop lesions on their lips rather than their tongues.

Picture 3: Common clinical sign displayed by cattle with wooden tongue.

Alpacas can be wonderful pets, brilliant gaurdian animals and produce fantastic fibres, but their unique looks are just one thing that makes them special. As part of the camelid family, their health needs are closest to the camel, not the sheep.

Alpacas originate in South America- a far cry from the fertile soils in the Orange district. Raising, farming and caring for alpacas is a bit different to their lives in South America. 

Keeping alpacas healthy locally often requires a bit more work than you might be bargaining on: 

- desexing males helps population control, and fighting between males

- alpacas are non-shedding, so summer shearing is a must 

- foot care with alpaca farriery might be needed, usually at shearing

- they can be escape artists! Mesh fences help with keeping families together

- alpacas make great gaurdians- keep this in mind with dogs around

- parasite problems can emerge- faecal monitoring helps plan drenching 

- vaccinations are vital- a '5in1' or '7in1' vaccine might be used 

- Vitamin D can be seasonally neccessary - injections are best 

- alpacas need lots of roughage- plan on 1-2kg daily (grass + hay are best)

- alpacas need fresh water available- plan for up to 4L a day per animal

- if you have alpacas, you should have a registered PIC with the LLS

- teeth can be troublesome, especially if there is a bite issue. Check each year

Heifer rearing often accounts for a big chunk of the input costs of running a farm every year, but did you know that an investment in rearing healthy heifers is an investment in the future productivity of your farm?

So how can farmers get the best out of first calving whilst maintaining a healthy, productive and fertile heifer?

The age of a heifer, coupled with their rate of growth, weight and frame size at first calving are the major variables that contribute to their health, productivity and fertility.

Well-grown heifers are also more fertile at their initial joining, and throughout subsequent breeding once in the herd.

• They are multi-host ticks and only stay on an animal for a week at a time.
• They also infect native animals (i.e. reservoir hosts, eg kangaroos).
• They can survive for up to 9 months on the ground without a host

• Current spray chemicals are short-acting, and are both slow and labour-intensive to apply.

Theileriosis is a disease affecting cattle that has caused significant economic losses for many Australian farms. First appearing in New South Wales in 2006, the disease then spread to Victoria (mainly Gippsland) in 2011, and has just been detected for the first time in Tasmania. Historically, it has been reported in many parts of NSW, including the Central Tablelands (click on the cows above to see a map of historical cases).

What causes theileriosis?
The disease is caused by the protozoan parasite (Theileria orientalis ikeda). Signs of the disease are similar to symptoms of severe anaemia and may include:

• Lethargy
• Poor appetite
• Exercise intolerance
• Increased respiratory rate
• Pale to jaundiced mucous membranes, often giving a pale and yellowish appearance to the eyelid
• High temperature
• Abortions
• Drop in milk production in dairy cows
• Death, most commonly in heavily pregnant cows

How to diagnose theileriosis?
Theileriosis can be easily diagnosed with a blood test.

How does theileriosis spread?
The bush tick (Haemaphysalis longicornis) is the usual vector that spreads theileria. Other carriers such as biting flies, sucking lice and vaccination needles are also capable of spreading the disease.

How is theileriosis treated?
Several medications are available to treat theileriosis, depending on the severity of the disease. If cattle are severely anaemic, blood transfusions may be necessary, and the prognosis deteriorates significantly.

How can you protect your farm against theileriosis?

• Avoid introducing cattle from affected areas
• If you must introduce cattle:
• Introduce from districts where infection is uncommon
• Perform biosecurity procedures throughout the introduction:
• Treat for ticks on arrival
• Place in paddocks less favourable for ticks
• Separate introduced cattle from home cattle

In summer, it seems that less time spent munching grass or going to competitions means more time for mischief and misadventure. This combined with some horses’ nervous, flighty disposition can result in bumps, grazes and sometimes cuts.

When a cut occurs on a part of the horse which is well covered with muscle or other soft tissue, complications with healing after veterinary treatment are not common. However, if a significant injury breaks the skin on the lower part of the leg, then the chance of complications with healing increases significantly.

There are two main reasons for this:

1. The lower leg of a horse has much less muscle under the skin, mostly just bone, tendons and joints. This means when skin is cut and shrinks from the wound site, as skin tends to, stretching the skin so it joins normally is more difficult. This is because muscle under the skin is more flexible than bone and tendons.
2. This area has a lower blood supply as bones and tendons need relatively little blood compared to muscle. This blood supply is closer to the skin surface and easily damaged when horses are injured.
   So, the combined difficulty getting the skin to join and getting optimum blood supply for good healing makes for a challenging recovery for the horse, carer and vet.

• The wound involves a blood vessel or a joint
• The wound edges won’t easily join
• The wound is contaminated with dirt or other material
• You can see underlying structures such as joints or 'white bits'
• The horse is lame as well as a laceration
• The main issues your vet can address quickly are stopping blood loss, infection management, and strategies to improve wound healing, which can include suturing, skin flaps and/or grafts to fill gaps in skin coverage.

Post-Surgical Management
The management and care of these sometimes-complicated wounds is often a shared responsibility between horse, carer and vet. Vets need skills which go far beyond surgical skills. A vet and the owner will team up and discuss so that they can decide what level of responsibility the owner can safely undertake to change dressings, assess how the wound is healing and redress the wound.

The vet will then decide how much instruction to give the owner verbally and in writing to ensure these important tasks are carried out effectively. The vet can then decide how often they need to visit the horse to check and re-bandage the wound.

Sometimes blood supply to the healing wound is compromised and the outcome is not ideal. For example, a poorly healing wound may result in surrounding skin dying, which then necessitates a secondary healing process such as a red area. The formation of a red area, sometimes called granulation, involves covering the underlying structures with tissue that is rich in blood vessels until the skin heals from the outside in. Although not ideal aesthetically, the red area will ultimately be covered with skin scar tissue. This scar tissue is not as flexible and may restrict some movement, so this treatment should be avoided if at all possible.

Your vet, diligence and patience are your best friends when it comes to complex wound healing.

Calves should be castrated as young in life as possible to reduce blood loss and pain. We strongly recommend providing pain relief whenever possible during castration- it helps the (soon to be) steers recover faster. 

Here are a few guidelines you should follow when castrating your calves:

Standards (legal requirements which must be adhered to)

• The person in charge of castrating must ensure the use of appropriate pain relief when castrating cattle, unless the cattle are:
• less than six months old, or
• less than 12 months old when at their first yarding and where the later age is approved in the jurisdiction.

Guidelines (non-compulsory but strongly recommended practises)

• Castration should be completed as young as possible (less than 12 weeks of age) and prior to weaning.
• Calves should be more than 24 hours old when castrated.
• Calves less than two weeks old should be castrated by the rubber-ring method.
• Rubber rings or tension bands should be correctly positioned to ensure tension is achieved to block the arterial blood flow. This should only be applied when two testes can be palpated in the scrotum beneath the rubber ring
• Calves older than two weeks old should be castrated by excision which extends fully to the base of the scrotum to allow effective drainage and reduce the risk of infection.
• Surgical procedures should be done with pain relief. Operators should seek advice on current pain minimisation strategies.

For further advice, or to plan an upcoming castration, speak to a member of our knowledgeable veterinary team. If things don't seem right, you can get one of vets to assess and make a plan together. 

New research has been published suggesting that rural residents should be vaccinated against Q-fever. Q-fever is a bacterial disease transmitted to humans primarily from cattle, and other ruminant animals like goats and sheep. The disease can have a lifelong impact on health, including post-Q-fever fatigue syndrome. Most of the time, an animal infected with Q-fever shows no symptoms, however it may cause animals to go off their feed, and is known to cause late-term abortions.

The study found one-in-20 people in rural Queensland have been exposed to the bacteria that causes Q-fever, and a rate of one-in-27 people in rural New South Wales. Interestingly, this study still is likely to underestimate the true exposure rates as antibodies (which indicate exposure) decline below the limit of detection with time. The single-shot vaccine is available for humans (not animals), and is highly-effective at conferring lifelong immunity against the disease.

In light of this information, vaccination (or testing at the very least) is recommended for all people with frequent exposure to sheep, cattle and goats, as well as abattoir workers and farm animal birthing assistants, and to any resident of a rural area who is likely to come into contact with somebody exposed to Q-fever. Usually the first step of Q-fever vaccination are tests to check that the person has not been exposed to Q-fever already.

Information about Q-fever and finding medical centres that vaccinate against it are available on the Australian Q-fever register.

• Inflammation and recession or overgrowth of the gums
• The area below the gums may be swollen and teeth can show a bulbous enlargement
• Pain responses, including misbehaving or changed behaviour

• Periodontal disease
• Pathologic tooth fracturing
• Tooth looseness before complete tooth loss