Kayla Haley
ADS 4613
Writing Assignment #2
4-11-14
Leptospirosis in Cattle and Horses Leptospirosis is an infectious disease causing problems in the reproductive tract in most types of animals. Leptospirosis is most commonly found in cattle and horses. If this disease is not treated it can cause devastating effects on a producer’s farm. This disease is very harmful because it can go undetected for several months. Lepto is also very easily spread from one animal to another. There is no absolute way to keep leptospirosis away from your farm but there are many ways in increasing the chance of not catching the disease. Knowing the symptoms, what happens, how the disease is transmitted and an effective method of prevention can help the producer control leptospirosis. Symptoms of leptospirosis vary in species but are generally the same in cattle and horses. When infected the symptoms vary depending on the stage in which the disease is. When first infected cattle and horse will have a low-grade fever and loss of appetite for a couple of day. Symptoms such as blindness, abortions, and even death can spontaneously occur with in 7-12 days of contamination. If a horse is infected they will have signs of the infection in their urine 3-4 months after the infection has entered the body. Horses will show signs of moon blindness and if not treated eventually completely blind. When infected with leptospirosis many problems will occur. If the disease goes untreated most cattle and horses will abort, have a stillborn or birth to premature infected babies. The disease will also cause sickness and bloody urine in calves. This disease can also lead to lack of milk production, kidney failure, and in the worst cases death. Studies show that this is a rising problem in horses and the beef industry. Leptospirosis is 2-4% the cause in reproduction problems in horse. Leptospirosis is a becoming a major problem in dairy cattle because of swelling in the udder causing lack of milk production and thickened infectious milk is produced. Diagnosing this disease can be difficult depending on how well you manage and watch the heard of livestock. Leptospirosis only thrives in the tissues for a short amount of time, except in the kidneys where they can stay for up to 4 months. Serum samples can be taken from 10 percent of the heard including healthy and ones that might be caring the infectious disease. Testing other livestock that has access to them can be helpful in determining where the disease started. Diagnosis of leptospirosis is based on a good clinical and vaccination history and the availability of diagnostic testing. The most inexpensive and accurate way to determine if your livestock has leptospirosis is a serologic test. This test involves mixing appropriate dilutions of serum with live leptospirosis. Other ways of diagnosing this disease is by PCR assays. This type of test is relatively expensive and can only be tested in reference laboratories. You would also need to know any types of vaccinations the livestock has ever been treated with. There are some common approaches that can help the control of leptospirosis in cattle
