Ovine infectious keratoconjunctivitis in sheep: the farmer’s perspective

The objective of this study was to gather current, farmer-reported data on the frequency of occurrence, risk factors and treatment practices for the sheep eye disease, ovine infectious keratoconjunctivitis (OIKC). A questionnaire regarding eye disease in sheep was completed by 135 farmers from four...

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Autores principales: Williams, Helen J, Duncan, Jennifer S, Fisher, Sarah Nichol, Coates, Amy, Stokes, Jessica Eleanor, Gillespie, Amy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6802982/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31673374
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/vetreco-2018-000321
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author Williams, Helen J
Duncan, Jennifer S
Fisher, Sarah Nichol
Coates, Amy
Stokes, Jessica Eleanor
Gillespie, Amy
author_facet Williams, Helen J
Duncan, Jennifer S
Fisher, Sarah Nichol
Coates, Amy
Stokes, Jessica Eleanor
Gillespie, Amy
author_sort Williams, Helen J
collection PubMed
description The objective of this study was to gather current, farmer-reported data on the frequency of occurrence, risk factors and treatment practices for the sheep eye disease, ovine infectious keratoconjunctivitis (OIKC). A questionnaire regarding eye disease in sheep was completed by 135 farmers from four livestock markets. Most farmers (87%) had observed OIKC in their flock, 88% of these within the last 2 years. Farmers reported observing most cases in the winter months (51%) and fewest in the summer (10%). They proposed housing and forage feeding from racks as factors associated with OIKC. A variety of treatment protocols were used by farmers. The three most popular treatments used were: cloxacillin eye ointment, intramuscular oxytetracycline injection and topical tetracycline spray applied to the eye. Only 62% of treatments were considered very effective by the farmers, with no difference in farmer perceived efficacy between these three most commonly used treatments (p=0.6). Farmers used 15 different terms to describe a photograph of a sheep with OIKC, including many colloquial terms. We hypothesise that this could result in communication problems between veterinary surgeons and farmers.
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spelling pubmed-68029822019-10-31 Ovine infectious keratoconjunctivitis in sheep: the farmer’s perspective Williams, Helen J Duncan, Jennifer S Fisher, Sarah Nichol Coates, Amy Stokes, Jessica Eleanor Gillespie, Amy Vet Rec Open Food/Farmed Animals The objective of this study was to gather current, farmer-reported data on the frequency of occurrence, risk factors and treatment practices for the sheep eye disease, ovine infectious keratoconjunctivitis (OIKC). A questionnaire regarding eye disease in sheep was completed by 135 farmers from four livestock markets. Most farmers (87%) had observed OIKC in their flock, 88% of these within the last 2 years. Farmers reported observing most cases in the winter months (51%) and fewest in the summer (10%). They proposed housing and forage feeding from racks as factors associated with OIKC. A variety of treatment protocols were used by farmers. The three most popular treatments used were: cloxacillin eye ointment, intramuscular oxytetracycline injection and topical tetracycline spray applied to the eye. Only 62% of treatments were considered very effective by the farmers, with no difference in farmer perceived efficacy between these three most commonly used treatments (p=0.6). Farmers used 15 different terms to describe a photograph of a sheep with OIKC, including many colloquial terms. We hypothesise that this could result in communication problems between veterinary surgeons and farmers. BMJ Publishing Group 2019-10-08 /pmc/articles/PMC6802982/ /pubmed/31673374 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/vetreco-2018-000321 Text en © British Veterinary Association 2019. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Food/Farmed Animals
Williams, Helen J
Duncan, Jennifer S
Fisher, Sarah Nichol
Coates, Amy
Stokes, Jessica Eleanor
Gillespie, Amy
Ovine infectious keratoconjunctivitis in sheep: the farmer’s perspective
title Ovine infectious keratoconjunctivitis in sheep: the farmer’s perspective
title_full Ovine infectious keratoconjunctivitis in sheep: the farmer’s perspective
title_fullStr Ovine infectious keratoconjunctivitis in sheep: the farmer’s perspective
title_full_unstemmed Ovine infectious keratoconjunctivitis in sheep: the farmer’s perspective
title_short Ovine infectious keratoconjunctivitis in sheep: the farmer’s perspective
title_sort ovine infectious keratoconjunctivitis in sheep: the farmer’s perspective
topic Food/Farmed Animals
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6802982/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31673374
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/vetreco-2018-000321
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