Announcements & Updates

Yersinia are a type of bacteria and are a significant cause of disease in goats.

Two species of Yersinia can cause disease in goats, Yersinia enterocolitica and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis.

Testing goats for Yersinia can be done as part of one of my on-farm small ruminant disease investigations.

From February 28 to March 3 2023 I was in Victoria, Australia, participating in the BestWool/BestLamb & BetterBeef Networks Regional Roadshow.

A good health plan is key to healthy flock or herd. During my presentation, I covered how to put your flock/herd health plan to work to help minimize seasonal disease risks and reproductive losses.

I recently participated in the Goats for the Future Workshop organized by the Queensland Central Goat Group. The workshop was held at the Comet Showgrounds in Central Queensland.

I gave a presentation on Mycoplasma in Goats: an Australian Perspective. I also ran a workshop on biosecurity and herd health plans.

In October 2022 I was invited to speak on best practice tail docking and lamb marking pain relief at a Transitioning to a Non-Mulesed Flock seminar at Dunkeld in Victoria.

The seminar was a big success, with lots of interest amongst the farmers who attended.

Real-time PCR is a highly sensitive way to amplify and quantify a specific nucleic acid sequence in real time. In veterinary disease testing, the specific nucleic acid sequence is often from a pathogenic bacteria, virus, fungus, yeast, or parasite.

I am frequently asked what a Ct values means in a real-time PCR test result. I will try to explain what the Ct value means.

Pneumonia in sheep and goats is common in Australia. The abattoir survey of sheep pneumonia pathogens has found that infection with Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae in sheep is widespread in Australia.

Parainfluenza-3 virus is one of the most common viral infections of the respiratory tract of domestic ruminants. Historically it was thought that the bovine strain of parainfluenza-3 virus was responsible for infections and disease in sheep and goats. However, new molecular techniques indicate that sheep and goats may also have their own strains of the virus.

‘When all else fails, read the instructions’ is a common saying. But when using veterinary and agricultural chemicals, it is crucial to read the instructions BEFORE you do anything else.

Bacterial joint infections (arthritis) in lambs are painful and debilitating. Unfortunately these infections are widespread across all sheep-raising regions in Australia.