Abstract
The present study aims to investigate whether the disease complex for Haemorrhagic Enteritis (HE) in goats during the winter months is the same as described for Jejunal Haemorrhage Syndrome (JHS) in cattle. The further goal is to determine whether prebiotic and probiotic management strategies developed for JHS in cattle alleviate HE in goats. The clinical, necropsy and microbiologic findings were evaluated for goat cases during a natural HE outbreak. Bacterial pathogens were identified using selective media, biochemical tests, latex agglutination tests and DNA microarray. Feed components were evaluated for mycotoxigenic fungi and mycotoxins. Common clinical signs included stary look, grinding of teeth, an odd twisting of the neck when standing, hind-limb paralysis, rumen stasis, no faecal pellets, profuse drooling and a 50% drop in milk production. A prebiotic/probiotic treatment resolved the symptoms in 14 of 28 goats, but new cases continued to develop. The most common morphologic diagnosis at necropsy was severe jejunitis with intraluminal haemorrhage or blood clots confirming HE. The corn silage contained mycotoxigenic fungi and mycotoxins. There were mixtures of Shiga toxin – producing Escherichia coli (STEC) isolated from the jejunum. The probiotic and prebiotic acted as anti-adhesive agents for STEC colonization in vitro. The prebiotic also acted as a mycotoxin binder in vitro. Removing the mouldy corn silage stopped the mycotoxicosis, but did not correct production losses. Adding a prebiotic or probiotic significantly increased milk production and body condition, but also decreased somatic cell counts. Results confirm that the disease complex for HE in dairy goats consuming mouldy feeds includes mycotoxins and STEC infection. The study also supports the use of prebiotics and probiotics to alleviate the morbidity and production losses associated with the mycotoxicosis.
Highlights
Plant disease epidemics have created an ecologically unbalanced system in modern agriculture
Since the evolutionary rate within Inter Simple Sequence Repeats (ISSR) is considerably higher than other types of DNA, the likelihood of finding polymorphism is greater compared to Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) [8]
In vitro confrontations were studied by performing dual culture technique described by Dennis and Webster [14] was used to test the antagonistic ability of Trichoderma isolates against the phytopathogenic fungi Pythium aphanidermatum and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum
Summary
Plant disease epidemics have created an ecologically unbalanced system in modern agriculture. The Trichoderma species serves as a potential alternative to chemical control measure and growing pathogen resistance crop cultivars. This may be attributable to their diverse metabolic capability and aggressively competitive nature [1,2]. The Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) region is perhaps the most widely sequenced DNA region in fungi. It has typically been most useful for molecular systematic study at species level, and even within species [9,10,11,12]. The present study was to characterize the cryptic species of Trichoderma associated with biological control and to establish the relation between bioefficacy and molecular characters existed if any
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
