Publications

© 2018 Terra Verlag GmbH. All rights reserved. Many farmers need to face the conflict between economic pressure and higher requirements in farming. High stillbirth rates and perinatal mortality are an occurring problem. Monitoring calving is time-consuming and labor intensive, and calving prediction via direct observation is not very accurate. The usage of small and lightweight sensors potentially allows automated monitoring of animals on a ...

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) remain an important cause of neonatal and post-weaning diarrhoea in pigs. In general, neonatal infections can be prevented effectively by passive colostral and lactogenic immunity obtained by vaccination of the sow. In this respect, several maternal vaccines are on the market. These are applied mainly parenterally in the pregnant sow. However at weaning, lactogenic protection disappears. Strains involved ...

The aim of this study was to examine whether the provision of small amounts of peat to piglets would influence behaviour and production. At approximately 5 days of age, nine litters received a tray of peat as enrichment, while nine others did not. All piglets had access to solid feed, which was used to compare substrate-directed behaviour. Piglets were weaned at week 4, and half of the pens in the nursery again received peat. The other half did ...

Bovine neonatal pancytopenia (BNP) is a bleeding and pancytopenic syndrome in neonatal calves, which recently emerged all over Europe. The present study tested whether antibodies directed against calf leukocytes are present in sera from known BNP dams. Sera from BNP dams (n=11) were combined with leukocytes from 11 calves (5 BNP survivors and 6 controls). After adding a fluorescein conjugated F(ab')(2) fragment of rabbit anti-bovine IgG ...

Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 are zoonotic pathogens associated with haemorrhagic colitis (HC) and the haemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). Ruminants are the main reservoir of this organism and most outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 infections are food borne. Food contamination by ruminant manure has been reported as the primary source of human infection, therefore inhibition of E. coli O157:H7 colonization and shedding in ruminants could ...

In this study gnotobiotic animals were used to see if the F4 fimbrial antigen of F4ac+ Escherichia coli is as immunogenic as in conventional pigs. In addition, the adjuvant effect of beta-1,3/1,6-glucans was analysed for the first time in germ-free domestic animals. Oral F4 immunisation of F4 receptor positive (F4R(+)) piglets was able to induce a systemic and mucosal immune response as conventional pigs, although less pronounced. Nevertheless, ...