Influence of natural and climatic conditions on the distribution and forms of contagious agalactia in sheep in Bessarabia, Ukraine
Published Online: Sep 02, 2022
Page range: 345 - 351
Received: Mar 14, 2022
Accepted: Aug 22, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jvetres-2022-0047
Keywords
© 2022 M.V. Bohach et al. published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
Introduction
Contagious agalactia of ruminants is an endemic disease caused by
Material and Methods
The epizootic situation regarding contagious agalactia was studied during 2011–2021 on sheep farms in the south of the Odesa region in Bessarabia. Over two million blood samples from sheep aged 1–6 years were serologically investigated and the prevalence of agalactia was correlated with Selyaninov’s hydrothermal coefficient for each sampling year.
Results
High rates of infection of sheep with contagious agalactia (from 13.1% to 14.4%) were registered in 2012, 2016 and 2021, years which according to the hydrothermal coefficient of 1.0 were sufficiently moist. The lowest incidence rates, from 6.5% to 7.4%, were registered in the very dry 2013, 2014 and 2019 with hydrothermal coefficients of 0.5‒0.6. In sufficiently moist years, contagious agalactia of sheep manifested itself in the mastitic form, while in the dry period the mastitic form was half as prevalent, and the mixed, articular and ocular forms of the disease proliferated.
Conclusion
The results indicate the circulation of