Cattle Urinary Disease Flashcards
What is the taxonomy of lepto in cattle and what is it commonly referred to as?
•Complicated taxonomy
–Leptospira borgpetersenii serovar hardjo-bovis
–Leptospira interrogans servovar hardjo-prajitno
•Commonly referred to as
Leptospira Hardjo
What is the prevalence of lepto in uk cattle?
Very common
–Compare and contrast with leptospirosis in dogs
–Lepto in cattle is completely different! Do not confused with ARF and liver disease in dogs and cats
What are the key infectious cattle diseases? (6)
–Lepto, BVD, IBR, Johnes, bTB, Neospora
What are the clinical signs of chornic/endemic lepto?
•Reproductive
–Late stage abortion
–Abort 12 weeks after infection
–Reduced “fertility”
•Lepto cow – less progesterone produced and less obvious oestrus
What are the clinical signs of acute lepto?
- Often sub-clinical- rare to see
- “Flabby bag”
–Sudden milk drop – udder which should be full of milk suddenly has none so is flabby!
–Pyrexia
- Abort after infection
- Acute cases are dropping off – rare to see in practice
What are the risk factors for lepto? (4)
- Open herds
- Shared bulls - venereal
- Sheep
- •Shared watercourses (less important; some people think you can find in river and streams) possible if they drink here when cow further up
Where is lepto found in the cow?
Where is it shed?
Where is it absorbed?
- Found in kidneys
- Shed in urine
- Absorbed across mucous membranes
When does lepto increase?
•Increases at grazing
–See AB go up
–During the spring/summer
Due to the change in the urine
How do we diagnose lepto? (2)
–ELISA
- Use for monitoring – greater persistence
- Bulk milk ELISA available
–Give you an idea if the herd has been exposed!
–Can sense increase
•Wide inconclusive value – often end up testing twice
–Microscopic agglutination test (MAT)
•Use for suspected acute cases
Can we vaccinate against lepto?
–Limit shedding *VPH consideration*. ZOONOTIC! People at the parlour are most at risk
–Improve fertility at herd level and minimise the amount of disease we see
–If they aren’t vaccinating – advise this!
How can we treat lepto?
–Supportive and antibiotics (P&S, oxytet) in acute case
•Unlikely to see acute cases
–Traditionally high doses of streptomycin to eliminate from urinary tract
- E.g. Ab positive bull
- Too higher value to cull them you could do this
How can you revent againt lepto?
–Biosecurity – don’t buy it in if you haven’t got it, don’t but in bulls without testing
–Reduce risk factors – e.g. showing, open herd
–Vaccinate
What are these urine samples showing?
- A 2nd parity beef suckler cow, 6 months in calf, from an extensive grazing herd on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall
- Farmer calls to say urine looks like red wine
- Differential diagnoses?
Split into haemoglobinuria (5) an haematuria (5)
•Haemoglobinuria
–Babesiosis
–Bacilliary haemoglobinuria (Clostridia)
–Periparturient haemoglobinuria
–Copper toxicity
–Kale poisoning
•Haematuria
–Acute bracken poisoning
–Enzootic haematuria/Bladder tumour (Bracken poisoning)
–Pyelonephritis
–Urinary calculi
–Other tumours
What diagnostics do we start with when a cow presents with urinary complaints?
History
Clinical exam
Uine analysis
- A 2nd parity beef suckler cow, 6 months in calf, from an extensive grazing herd on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall
- Farmer calls to say urine looks like red wine
What is most likely and what do we do next?
- Likely Babesiosis (take blood sample)
- Assess anaemia (Clinical signs/PCV)
–Imidocarb (care re: withdrawl)
–Blood transfusion if necessary
- A 5th lactation dairy cow, calved 42 days presented at the end of a routine fertility visit because she is “unwell”
- The cow urinates before your examination and there is pus present in the urine
- Differential diagnoses? (4)
- Endometritis
- Vaginitis
- Cystitis
- Pyelonephritis
How do we differentiate between pus from urinary vs repro tract?
–Vaginal examination
–Catheterisation
–Ultrasonography
How do we differentiate between a problem renally vs bladder? (4)
–Clinical exam
–Rectal examination
–Ultrasonography
–Biochemistry
•Creatinine NOT urea in ruminants
- Pyrexia, painful, swollen left kidney on rectal examination
- Vaginal examination normal
- Pus on catheterised urine sample
What is most likely and what do we do next?
- Likely pyelonephritis
- Treatment with antibiotics
–Penicillin (long duration – 10 days?)
- 6th lactation dairy cow, chronic lameness and two cases of mastitis this lactation. Losing weight, no diarrhoea, clinical exam NAD
- +++ protein in urine
What Urinary disease is most likely? What would your thoughts be if this cow also had D++?
- Diarrhoea – think Johnes!. Johnes loose weight as it a PLE. Loos protein and lean BW.
- So similar to PLE but in urinary – PLN. Kidney disease can cause protein loss. Rare in cattle but would completely miss this.
- Chronic sick cows – protein in urine would mean you wouldn’t miss this!!
•Glomerulonephritis
–Protein losing nephropathy
– more likely from history as lots of chronic infections. Lots of AB-AG complexes that can precipitate out of the kidney! Not v common, But you would find on dipstick.
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