Search Results (3,085)

Small ruminant lentiviruses are longstanding viral infections affecting sheep and goats worldwide, resulting in reduced efficiency and economic losses. In Portugal, updated epidemiological data are scarce. The aim of this study was to assess the seroprevalence and risk factors for SRLV in Portugal. The study was conducted in Portuguese flocks of ovine and caprine species. Flocks were randomly chosen, and producers were invited to answer a questionnaire. The indirect ELISA test, ID Screen^® MVV/CAEV Indirect, was made to detect infection. We collected samples from 59 flocks, of which 55.93% (CI 95%: 43.26–68.60%) had at least one positive animal. Of these flocks, 1302 individual samples presented a seroprevalence of 32.95% (CI 95%: 30.08–35.81%). Regarding the risk factor analysis, the multivariable mixed-effects logistic regression model at the individual level identified variables with increased odds of SRLV seropositivity. Caprine species (OR = 2.47; CI 95%: 1.01–6.03), non-autochthonous breed (OR = 2.95; CI 95%: 1.23–7.06), animals older than two years old (OR = 1.95; CI 95%: 1.29–2.94), dairy aptitude (OR = 8.15; CI 95%: 2.53–26.24), unknown serostatus of newly acquired animals (OR = 9.41; CI 95%: 2.93–30.23) and participation in livestock competitions (OR = 4.25; CI 95%: 1.42–12.73) were significantly associated with increased odds of seropositivity. SRLV has been confirmed in both regions of Portugal studied, with a significant regional disparity that is likely attributable to differences in management practices. The identification of risk factors specific to each production system is crucial for the development and implementation of voluntary control programs. Full article

This study investigated the interactive effects of corn silage and ramie silage on in vitro rumen fermentation characteristics, aiming to provide a scientific basis and empirical evidence for the rational incorporation of ramie into ruminant diets. Four binary substrate mixtures were formulated based on dry matter (DM) mass ratios of corn silage to ramie silage: 100:0 (CON), 60:40 (R40), 20:80 (R80), and 0:100 (R100). Rumen fluid was collected from three adult Liuyang black goats surgically fitted with permanent rumen cannulas, and a standardized 48 h in vitro batch culture assay was conducted. Results demonstrated that increasing the proportion of ramie silage significantly decreased (p < 0.05) the DM degradation rate, neutral detergent fiber (NDF) degradation rate, acid detergent fiber (ADF) degradation rate, and total gas production per gram of substrate DM. Specifically, CON and R40 exhibited significantly higher values for all four parameters than R80 and R100 (p < 0.05). Methane production was significantly reduced in all ramie-containing treatments relative to CON (p < 0.05), whereas hydrogen production increased progressively with ramie inclusion level, with CON yielding significantly less H₂ than both R80 and R100 (p < 0.05). Regarding fermentation parameters, increasing ramie proportion elevated (p < 0.05) both fermentation fluid pH and the acetate-to-propionate ratio, while total volatile fatty acid (TVFA) concentration declined linearly (p < 0.05). TVFA concentrations did not differ significantly between CON and R40, yet both were significantly greater than those in R80 and R100 (p < 0.05). Collectively, these findings indicate that ramie silage is a nutritionally valuable forage with potential as a high-quality partial replacement for conventional silages in ruminant feeding systems; however, its inclusion in corn–ramie mixed silages should not exceed 40% (on a DM basis) to maintain optimal fermentative efficiency and nutrient degradability. Full article

In veterinary education, many exercises are performed on animals. Palpating the mucosa of the Ruminoreticulum in ruminants is a necessary preparatory exercise for future surgery. However, there are legal and ethical obligations to reduce the use of animals and improve animal welfare. This can be achieved using 3D models and simulators. To allow students to practice palpating the goat’s forestomach, a simulator is being developed. The aim of the present study was to produce replicas of the mucosal surface of the Ruminoreticulum for the inner lining of this simulator. Two methods were applied and compared: 3D printing and surface casting. For 3D printing, computed tomography-based virtual templates were created and printed after appropriate post-processing. For the surface cast, a negative mold of the mucosal surfaces was created using epoxy resin. The positive mucosal cast was then created using silicone. The results showed a clear advantage of surface casting compared to 3D printing. The virtual templates and 3D prints lacked fine anatomical structures. In contrast, the surface casting method yielded detailed replicas of the mucosal surfaces of Rumen and Reticulum, including even finer anatomical structures. Since the silicone casts also allowed for haptic differentiation of mucosal formations, they can be considered a suitable inner lining for the planned simulator. Full article

Enzootic nasal adenocarcinoma is a contagious neoplasm of goats for which early antemortem diagnosis remains challenging under field conditions. This study evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of infrared nasal thermography for detecting the disease using histopathology as the reference standard. Eighty-six goats from a dairy herd with confirmed enzootic nasal adenocarcinoma were examined by infrared thermography one day prior to slaughter under standardized environmental conditions. Thermal images of the ethmoidal region were qualitatively assessed for asymmetry or focal hyperthermia. Following slaughter, all heads underwent systematic necropsy and bilateral histopathological examination. Twenty-three goats (26.7%) were histologically confirmed as positive with confirmation by RT-PCR (Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction) from tissue samples. Infrared thermography showed a sensitivity of 82.6% and a specificity of 90.5%, with an overall diagnostic accuracy of 88.4%. Positive and negative predictive values were 76.0% and 93.4%, respectively. Agreement between thermography and histopathology was substantial (Cohen’s κ = 0.711; p < 0.001). Although thermography did not achieve the specificity of macroscopic post-mortem examination, its non-invasive and rapid nature supports its potential as a preliminary complementary antemortem screening approach, although its applicability at herd level requires validation in broader and more representative populations. Full article

Environmental temperature-induced metabolic changes in dams can be reflected by alterations in metabolomic and fatty acid profiles in colostrum. The colostrum from 13 Black Bengal (BB) dams was collected on the day of parturition at two consecutive parities during the hot conditions (HCs) of summer or rainy seasons and the cold conditions (CCs) of winter. The metabolomic and fatty acid profiles were analyzed using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, respectively. The results showed significantly higher sarcosine, tyrosine, citrate, succinate, galactose, acetylglucosamine, carnitine, choline, glycerophosphocholine, and trimethylamine N-oxide during CCs than HCs; potential discriminant metabolites according to VIP scores were sarcosine, succinate, and choline. Colostrum from CCs had significantly lower levels of saturated fatty acids (SFAs), including butyric acid (C4:0), myristic acid (C14:0), and pentadecanoic acid (C15:0), but higher omega-9 monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), especially oleic acid (C18:1n9c), elaidic acid (C18:1n9t), and eicosenoic acid (C20:1n9), than in HC. Linoleic acid (C18:2n6c) and the omega 6/omega 3 PUFA ratio were higher during CCs than HCs. It is concluded that a metabolic shift for nutrient utilization occurs, from glucose during HCs toward fat during CCs, which may not be due to the diet but rather neurohumoral alterations occurring during temperature adaptation. Full article

The Comarca Lagunera region faces groundwater quality issues due to elevated concentrations of heavy metals that exceed permissible limits set by Mexican regulations. This study aimed to evaluate arsenic concentrations in drinking water and goat milk, as well as their possible association with DNA fragmentation in goat lymphocytes in the Comarca Lagunera (Durango and Coahuila, Northern Mexico). Water, milk, and blood samples were collected from 120 goats (Capra hircus) and analyzed using atomic absorption spectrophotometry (water and milk samples) and the comet assay (blood). Arsenic concentration in drinking water varied among locations, with the highest value detected in El Venado (San Pedro, Coahuila), while other sites showed concentrations close to permissible limits. Arsenic concentrations in goat milk were generally low and mostly below the LOQ, which limited the ability to assess arsenic transfer into milk. DNA fragmentation was observed in lymphocytes; however, no statistically significant association was found between arsenic concentrations and DNA damage. These results indicate that, under the conditions of this study, DNA damage cannot be directly attributed to arsenic exposure and may be influenced by other environmental or biological factors. Further studies with larger sample sizes and additional variables are recommended. Full article

Neural network-based visual identification of animals has significant potential for livestock farming and herd management. Real farm environments rarely provide controlled visual conditions for high-quality dataset collection, which often leads to reduced model performance on out-of-distribution inputs and makes confidence estimation essential for reliable application. This work introduces a conformal prediction framework for animal identification based on pretrained neural network embeddings (ResNet-50 and Swin Transformer), enabling the generation of prediction sets with formal confidence guarantees. By calibrating a nonconformity score derived from cosine distances in the embedding space, the method ensures that the true identity is included in the prediction set at a user-defined confidence level. Three nonconformity scoring functions are evaluated to determine which produces the most compact prediction sets. Experiments on cow and goat datasets demonstrate that the framework achieves empirical coverage close to the target confidence levels across different embedding models. The ratio-based nonconformity measure consistently outperforms others, reducing mean set sizes by up to 79% compared to alternative measures. Swin-T embeddings outperform ResNet-50 by up to 14 percentage points in singleton prediction rate. The proposed framework preserves formal validity guarantees, improving robustness and interpretability in practical livestock applications where standard identification methods return only the nearest match without reliability estimates. Full article

Attitudes towards animal welfare depend on people’s lifestyles and education levels, yet little is known about the attitudes of nomadic people. We distributed a questionnaire and collected 1660 valid responses, representing individuals with or without nomadic connections and varying education levels and genders. We used ordinal logistic regression to analyze the impact of these two factors on perceptions, attitudes, and behavioral intentions related to animal welfare. Women and those with higher education levels tended to hold more positive attitudes toward animal welfare, but for farm animals, this was only extended to common female reproducing animals, such as cows, sheep, goats, and laying hens, but not other farm animals, such as beef cattle and broiler chickens. This may reflect a greater sensitivity towards reproducing animals. The influence of nomadic connections on attitudes towards animal welfare was not linear—respondents with nomadic connections themselves or family members of the same generation generally had more negative attitudes, while those with grandparents with nomadic connections had more positive attitudes on several animal welfare issues. This may reflect a generational change in the attitudes of nomadic people towards animals. Full article

C. pseudotuberculosis is a Gram-positive pathogenic bacterium that infects various animals, causing diseases such as caseous lymphadenitis, leading to significant economic losses in the livestock industry and posing zoonotic risks. This study targeted the conserved gyrA gene fragment of this bacterium, designed specific primers, optimized the reaction system and conditions, and established a high-resolution melting curve (HRM) detection method with potential utility for preliminary molecular screening. Validation showed that this method exhibits strong specificity, producing specific amplification only for the target biovars. The melting temperatures (Tm values) for the two biovars were 86.16 ± 0.05 °C and 86.92 ± 0.05 °C, respectively, allowing clear differentiation. It demonstrated high sensitivity, with minimum detection limits of 28 copies/μL and 25 copies/μL for standard plasmids of the ovis and equi biovars, respectively. The method also showed good reproducibility, with intra- and inter-batch coefficients of variation both below 1.0%. Applied to 133 clinical nasal swab samples from goats in Fujian Province, the method detected a positivity rate of 19.5% and indicates that a biovar equi-like gene fragment was detected in goat nasal swabs from Fujian Province via molecular screening. The HRM method developed in this study is sensitive, specific, simple, and cost-effective, enabling rapid detection and biovar differentiation of C. pseudotuberculosis. It is suitable for large-scale clinical sample screening and provides an efficient technical approach for epidemiological monitoring and precise control of the disease. Full article

This study investigated the microbiological composition and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) profiles of artisanal goat and sheep milk cheeses produced in Poland. Ten raw milk cheeses (five each from goat and sheep milk) were analyzed using a combined approach involving culture-dependent enumeration, 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and antibiotic susceptibility testing. Microbial counts revealed substantial variability among the samples, with lactic acid bacteria (LAB) dominating the microbiota. Taxonomic analysis confirmed the predominance of Lactococcus, Streptococcus, and lactobacilli, although marked intra-group heterogeneity was observed. Multivariate analyses indicated that sample-specific factors had a greater influence on microbiome composition than milk origin. Among 170 isolates, 28.7% were classified as multidrug-resistant (MDR), being most prevalent in Enterobacterales (100%) and Enterococcus spp. (73%), whereas LAB exhibited low resistance levels (16.2%). Resistance was most frequently associated with aminoglycosides and β-lactams. The resistance results were interpreted according to CLSI guidelines. These findings demonstrate that artisanal cheeses harbor complex, dynamic microbial ecosystems that may serve as reservoirs of antimicrobial resistance. The results highlight that environmental and technological factors, rather than milk source alone, are key drivers of both microbiome structure and resistance distribution, underscoring the need for targeted AMR monitoring in traditional dairy products. Full article

The objectives were: (i) mapping of bibliometric characteristics of publications related to sheep and goats internationally, (ii) comparison of publications related to each animal species, and (iii) comparison of characteristics in a 55-year long timespan from 1970 to 2024. The Web of Science was used with the following search terms: [sheep OR ovine OR Ovis aries] or [goat* OR caprine OR Capra hircus].account, and 165,052 papers related to sheep and 67,637 papers related to goats were considered. There was a progressive increase in papers published annually, with a higher proportion of papers related to goats published recently. Most papers were published in Small Ruminant Research (2.2% and 4.4% of papers related to sheep and goats, respectively), the journal with most published papers for 21 (sheep) and 29 (goats) years. Most papers originated from the United States of America, the country with most published papers for 52 (sheep) and 41 (goats) years. Most published papers related to sheep or goats were classified in the Dairy and animal sciences topics-meso. The two predominant topics-micro were Ruminant nutrition and Livestock reproduction for published papers related to sheep and papers related to goats. Overall, 31.7% and 34.9% of papers related to sheep and goats, respectively, were published under open access, with a progressive increase yearly. On average, papers related to sheep had received 0.93 citations annually and papers related to goats 0.73 citations annually. Full article

This study investigated the effects of different breeding methods on the cecal microbiota and production traits of Yimeng Black Goats (YBGs). Twenty-seven 3-month-old male YBGs were assigned to three groups (n = 9 each): total mixed ration once daily (A), concentrate in the morning and roughage in the afternoon (B), or grazing with supplementary feeding (C). Cecal bacterial communities were analyzed via 16S rRNA sequencing, and functional potential was predicted using FAPROTAX. Breeding method significantly altered microbial composition (p < 0.05). Beta diversity was highest in Group C, while alpha diversity remained similar across groups. Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, and Proteobacteria were dominant; Proteobacteria were most abundant in Group A. At the genus level, relative abundances of nine taxa, including Lactobacillus and Fusobacterium, differed significantly (p < 0.05). At the species level, including Lactobacillus mucosae, Bacteroides massiliensis and Alistipes finegoldii, differed significantly (p < 0.05). Chemoheterotrophy and fermentation functions were most enriched, particularly in Group C. Total weight gain was highest in Group A and lowest in Group C (p < 0.05), while carcass rate showed no significant differences (p > 0.05). Correlation analysis revealed that Proteobacteria, Fusobacteria, and Euryarchaeota as the key phylum, and Bacteroides, Tyzzerella, Fusobacterium, unidentified_Prevotellaceae, Methanovrevibacter and Faecalibacterium as the key genera were influencing the production traits of YBGs. These findings highlight the adaptive responses of the cecal microbiota to breeding methods and their potential links to host performance. Full article

This research explored how dietary supplementation of calcium nitrate influences methane emissions, nitrogen excretion, ruminal fermentation parameters, and microbiota in Liuyang black goats. A total of twelve male goats from this breed were divided into two groups: one serving as a control group (CON), while the other received a treatment of 3% calcium nitrate (CAL). The research was conducted over a period of 40 days and comprised two separate trial phases. A 10-day adaptation period and a 5-day sampling period (days 11–15) for each stage. Results showed that incorporating calcium nitrate significantly reduced the emissions of methane (CH₄) (p < 0.05) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) (p < 0.05). Moreover, the use of calcium nitrate modified the trends in ruminal fermentation, resulting in an increase in pH (p < 0.05). Moreover, the ratio of acetate to propionate (A:P) was notably reduced in the CAL group (p < 0.05), indicating a shift toward enhanced production of propionate. At the microbial level, an increased presence of Bacteroidota and Prevotella was observed in the CAL group (p < 0.05). In contrast, the CON group exhibited elevated levels of Firmicutes and Methanobrevibacter (p < 0.05). This finding suggests that calcium nitrate plays a significant role in reducing methane emissions and also affects the fermentation processes in the rumen along with the microbiota of Liuyang black goats. Further research is needed to examine the long-term implications of calcium nitrate supplementation on the health and productivity of these goats. Full article

Large animal models are a critical component of the preclinical evaluation of mechanical cardiac implants, enabling assessment of safety and performance under physiological conditions that cannot be adequately reproduced in vitro. Choosing a suitable animal model is important for both scientifically valid and ethically responsible preclinical evaluation. However, interspecies differences between animal models and humans pose significant challenges for relevant translation of preclinical findings to clinical outcomes. This narrative review provides a comprehensive overview of commonly used large animal models (sheep, goats, pigs, and calves) for the preclinical assessment of mechanical cardiac implants, including prosthetic heart valves, ventricular assist devices, and total artificial hearts. We summarize key anatomical and physiological characteristics that influence device implantation, chronic follow-up, and translational value. Emphasis is placed on three critical outcome domains for preclinical evaluation of mechanical cardiac implants: calcification, thrombogenicity, and hemodynamic performance. Species- and age-dependent differences in calcification are reviewed, identifying juvenile sheep as a worst-case model for early manifestation and detection of graft mineralization. Interspecies differences in coagulation biology are examined, showing attenuated platelet responses in sheep and closer similarity between porcine and human platelet behavior, supporting pigs as the preferred thrombogenicity model. Hemodynamic evaluation strategies in acute and chronic large-animal studies are discussed, with particular emphasis on circulatory demands influenced by somatic growth and on device adaptability under varying loading conditions. Overall, this review provides practical, outcome-driven guidance for large animal model selection and experimental design in mechanical cardiac implant research, while identifying key limitations, knowledge gaps, and the need for standardized reporting to improve the translational reliability of preclinical studies. Based on the findings presented in this review, we conclude that there is no single animal model capable of evaluating all relevant aspects of a device. Instead, different animal models provide distinct advantages depending on the outcomes of interest. Full article