The Sunday News
Mhlupheki Dube
WHILE I was interacting with farmers and discussing livestock mortalities due to diseases, one issue that seems to feature a lot is that they tend to experience most of the livestock mortalities due to diseases around about the beginning of the farming season.
They report that an animal can just drop dead during or soon after a ploughing session. They have observed that such deaths are almost always linked to heartwater, a tick borne disease.
This they usually confirm when they skin the animal and observe the internal organs, with the unmistaken fluid filled heart.
While it is reasonable to expect animals to suffer from tick borne diseases around about the same period of heavy tick infestation which is the period during the rains and tall grasses, it is still explainable why an animal will drop dead of a possible tick borne disease right at the tail end of the year.
The explanation lies on two aspects, nutrition and stress. Usually during the beginning of the farming season, most animals are in their worst body condition because they are just coming out of a dry season.
They have not recovered in terms of the body condition because the rains have just begun and the veld is still rejuvenating.
They have a body condition score which is below two and hence the animals are for all intents and purpose, weak.
Then add stress to this already precarious state. Stress has this ability to activate a disease or any underlying condition that could have been lying dormant with no effect to the host.
A very good example to illustrate the effect of stress, can be seen in people.
A person who has been looking and feeling perfectly normal with no known health conditions, will suddenly have a myriad of health issues surfacing if he or she is exposed to stressful conditions such as being incarcerated.
Just three or so days behind bars, a relative of yours who have never complained of any health issue, will suddenly become hypertensive and even diabetic.
These conditions could have been lying dormant for some time but because he/she was not subjected to stress, the diseases did not manifest.
By the same token your animals could have been suffering from the heartwater disease but more like a carrier but subjecting it to stress like pulling the ox drawn plough, in its poor body condition causes the disease to take its toll on the animal and it drops dead during the ploughing session or just after completion of the task.
So two factors worked together to predispose your animal to the disease, that is its poor body condition as a result of the poor veld and then the stress coming from the physical demands of pulling the ox drawn plough.
Farmers therefore need to be wary of the condition of their animals before engaging them to do heavy tasks such as ploughing.
In fact, it is good management practice to ensure that your oxen which you will use for ploughing at the onset of the rainy season are in good condition by at least including them on the list of animals that you supplement.
Usually we say supplement productive animals such as pregnant cows, lactating cows and working bulls. However, it is a good idea to also supplement those which you would need to use as draught power so that they are in a better state when the farming season begins.
Also it is important for me to reiterate that the most effective prevention and control method for tick borne disease is regular and effective dipping.
As farmers let us buy our own dipping chemicals and do our dipping, then Government will come in to complement our efforts.
It is not very prudent to wait 100 percent for Government dipping chemicals when you are the owner of the animals and the subsequent loss that you may incur is entirely yours.
Our animals are beginning to graze on the lush green grass as veld condition improves especially in high rainfall regions which have already received significant amounts of precipitation.
This means it’s now time to dose our animals and control the internal parasites so that the animals can be able to fully utilise whatever they are grazing on the veld.
Talking about dosing am excited that one of the most effective dosing remedies that I have ever used is back on the market after being absent for about four or so years now.
Unfortunately, I cannot name the product as that will be unpaid advertising which is prohibited but check it out!
Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo. Mhlupheki Dube is a livestock specialist and farmer. He writes in his own capacity. Feedback [email protected]/cell 0772851275
