Integration of production and financial models to analyse the financial impact of livestock diseases: a case study of Schmallenberg virus disease on British and French dairy farms

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to investigate and compare the financial impact of Schmallenberg disease for different dairy production types in the United Kingdom and France. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Integrated production and financial models for dairy cattle were developed and applied to Schmallenberg virus (SBV) disease in a British and French context. The five main production systems that prevail in these two countries were considered. Their respective gross margins measuring the holding's profitability were calculated based on public benchmarking, literature and expert opinion data. A partial budget analysis was performed within each production model to estimate the impact of SBV in the systems modelled. Two disease scenarios were simulated: low impact and high impact. RESULTS: The model gross margin obtained per cow space and year ranged from £1014 to £1484 for the UK and from £1037 to £1890 for France depending on the production system considered. In the UK, the net SBV disease costs in £/cow space/year for an average dairy farm with 100 milking spaces were estimated between £16.3 and £51.4 in the high-impact scenario and between £8.2 and £25.9 in the low-impact scenario. For France, the net SBV disease costs in £/cow space/year ranged from £19.6 to £48.6 in the high-impact scenario and £9.7 to £22.8 in the low-impact scenario, respectively. CONCLUSION: The study illustrates how the combination of production and financial models allows assessing disease impact taking into account differing management and husbandry practices and associated price structures in the dairy sector. It supports decision-making of farmers and veterinarians who are considering disease control measures as it provides an approach to estimate baseline disease impact in common dairy production systems in the UK and France

Status Report on Education in the Economics of Animal Health: Results from a European Survey

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mGluR5 Antagonist-Induced Psychoactive Properties: MTEP Drug Discrimination, a Pharmacologically Selective Non-NMDA Effect with Apparent Lack of Reinforcing Properties

ABSTRACT Fenobam [N-(3-chlorophenyl)-N9-(4,5-dihydro-1-methyl-4-oxo-1H-imidazole-2-yl)urea], a potent metabotropic glutamate mGluR5 receptor antagonist, reported to have analgesic effects in animals and anxiolytic effects in humans, also caused adverse events, including psychostimulant-type effects and "derealization phenomena." Recent electrophysiologic, pharmacologic, and anatomic data show that the mGluR5 antagonists 2-methyl-6-(phenylethynyl)pyridine (MPEP) and (E)-2-methyl-6-styryl-pyridine (SIB-1893) can inhibit NMDA receptor-mediated activity and that mGluR5 receptors are highly expressed in limbic and forebrain regions. The present studies first evaluated the potential of mGluR5 receptor antagonists to cause PCP-like psychoactive effects in a rat drug discrimination procedure and, second, explored and characterized the selective mGluR5 antagonist 3-[(2-methyl-1,3-thiazol-4-yl)ethynyl]pyridine (MTEP) as a discriminative stimulus and compared MTEP with other drugs known to be psychoactive in humans. Additionally, the reinforcing potential of MPEP and MTEP was compared with phencyclidine (PCP) in a rat intravenous self-administration procedure. Dizocilpine [(1)-MK-801] and ketamine caused full PCP-appropriate responding. Memantine and the mGluR5 antagonists caused no or weak partial PCPappropriate responding. In MTEP-trained rats, MTEP, MPEP, and fenobam caused full and equipotent MTEP-appropriate responding. (1)-MK-801 and memantine caused MTEPappropriate responding below 70%, whereas PCP, chlordiazepoxide and LSD caused MTEP-appropriate responding below 50%. D 9 -Tetrahydrocannabinol, yohimbine, arecoline, and pentylenetetrazole all caused MTEP-appropriate responding below 20%. Rats self-administered PCP but not MPEP or MTEP, indicating a lack of reinforcing effects of the mGluR5 antagonists. These data suggest that the mGluR5 antagonists appear not to have reinforcing properties, that the discriminative effects of mGluR5 antagonists and PCP are dissimilar, and that mGluR5 antagonists may produce psychoactive effects different from NMDA-antagonists and other drugs with known psychotomimetic properties

Association Between Postpartum High Β-Hydroxybutyrate and/or Non-Esterified Fatty Acids and Plasma Metabolites, Body Condition and Reproductive Performance in Dairy Cows

Materials and Methods The animals, sampling methods and laboratory techniques have been described in detail in a companion paper [6]. Briefly, 50 Montbéliarde dairy cows producing an average of 25kg milk

Association of pregnancy per artificial insemination with gonadotropin-releasing hormone and human chorionic gonadotropin administered during the luteal phase after artificial insemination in dairy cows: A meta-analysis

One strategy for improving fertility in cattle is administration of GnRH or human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) during the luteal phase, which increases progesterone (P4) secretion and delays luteolysis. To provide an overview of how GnRH or hCG treatment between 4 and 15 d after artificial insemination (AI) improves pregnancy per AI (P/AI) in cows, a meta-analysis was performed on 107 different trials from 52 publications. Data from 18,082 treated cows and 18,385 untreated controls were meta-analyzed. The meta-analysis explained the relative risk for P/AI with GnRH or hCG treatment under various circumstances. The results did not show any difference in P/AI between cows treated with hCG and cows treated with GnRH. Compared with no treatment, treatment with GnRH or hCG improved the chances of P/AI in cows with very poor (60.1%). Moreover, treatment with GnRH and hCG improved the chances of P/AI in primiparous cows. The improvement was much better in primiparous cows with very low fertility. Treatment with buserelin at a dose above 10 µg and with hCG at a dose above 2,500 IU was associated with increased chances of P/AI compared with lower doses. Treatment with GnRH 10 d after AI was also associated with increased chances of P/AI compared with earlier treatment. The present meta-analysis showed that the use of GnRH and hCG after AI should be focused on cows expected to have low or moderate fertility. Day and dose of treatment have to be considered as well

Europe Needs Consistent Teaching of the Economics of Animal Health

The prevalence of meat consumption dictates that there is a global need for people educated in animal health economics. Since there are limited resources available for animal health surveillance, as well as the control and prevention of diseases, people skilled in animal health science with a deep understanding of economics and the allocation of scarce resources are required to enable consumer to access safe, value-added meat product

Nonlinear theory of macroscopic flow induced in a drop of ferrofluid

We present results of theoretical modelling of macroscopic circulating flow induced in a cloud of ferrofluid by an oscillating magnetic field. The cloud is placed in a cylindrical channel filled by a nonmagnetic liquid. The aim of this work is the development of a scientific basis for a progressive method of addressing drug delivery to thrombus clots in blood vessels with the help of the magnetically induced circulation flow. Our results show that the oscillating field can induce, inside and near the cloud, specific circulating flows with the velocity amplitude about several millimetres per second. These flows can significantly increase the rate of transport of the molecular non-magnetic impurity in the channel. This article is part of the theme issue 'Transport phenomena in complex systems (part 1)'. © 2021 The Author(s).Agence Nationale de la Recherche, ANR: ANR-15-IDEX-01; Russian Science Foundation, RSF: 20-12-00031Data accessibility. Source code and numerical data has been provided as electronic supplementary material. Authors’ contributions. A.Y.Z. and P.K. were involved in problem statement and development of the mathematical model. D.C., M.R.M. and G.V.D. were involved in analytical and numerical calculations. Competing interests. We declare we have no competing interests Funding. A.Z. and D.C. thanks the Russian Science Foundation, project 20-12-00031, for the financial support. P.K. and M.R.M. thank the funding of French ‘Agence Nationale de la Recherche’, Project Future Investments UCA JEDI, No. ANR-15-IDEX-01 (projects ImmunoMag and MagFilter) and by the private company Axlepios Biomedical

Association between yeast product feeding and milk production of lactating dairy cows: Multilevel meta-analysis and meta-regression

To provide an overview of the association between commercially available yeast product (YP) supplementation and milk yield (MY) in lactating dairy cows, multilevel meta-analyses were performed on 99 trials from 49 peer-reviewed studies. Associations were evaluated using random effects models to examine the standardized mean difference (SMD) between the YP and control treatments. Associations were also quantified using the weighted mean difference (WMD). YP supplementation was associated with increased milk yield (+ 0.69 kg/d), milk fat content (+ 0.06%), milk fat yield (+ 0.04 kg/d) and milk protein yield (+ 0.02 kg/d). A positive association between YP and MY was not observed in primiparous cows during mid- and late lactation or in cows fed a high neutral detergent fiber diet. The improvement of MY in cases of YP supplementation was higher if YP supplementation started before calving (+ 0.79 kg/d) compared to after calving. The multivariate analyses showed that YP supplementation was associated with an increase in MY but not with an increase in dry matter intake (DMI). This provides strong evidence that greater milk production observed in supplemented cows is not a result of increased DMI

Influence of the coincubation of post-thawed bull semen with elevated β-hydroxybutyrate concentrations on sperm characteristics

Abstract In this study, the relationships between post-thaw bull sperm characteristics and hy- perketonemic conditions after coincubation with cow plasma or media were deter- mined to investigate if such a condition could affect bull sperm characteristics. Two experiments were conducted. In experiment 1, blood samples were collected from 31 cows to prepare plasma. Cows were independently categorized into two groups ac- cording to plasma β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) concentrations (above or below 1.2 mM). Thawed bull semen was diluted and incubated with diluted plasma; motility param- eters were evaluated using Computer Assisted Semen Analysis (CASA). In experiment 2, a pooled sample of thawed semen was diluted and divided into three aliquots: with- out BHB (control) and treated with either 1.2 mM (1.2) or 3 mM (3) BHB. In addition to motility, flow cytometric analyses were carried out. In experiment 1, the overall motility decreased significantly in plasma containing high (≥1.2 mM) BHB compared to plasma containing low (<1.2 mM) BHB. In experiment 2, the overall motility tended to be lower in BHB (3 mM)-supplemented samples. The supplementation of 3 mM BHB increased the proportion of live superoxide-positive sperm and sperm with high mito- chondrial potential, while the DNA fragmentation index decrease