Abstract
Aim:To study epidemiology of forestomach (reticuloruminal, omasal, and abomasal) disorders in cattle and buffaloes.Materials and Methods:The 106 buffaloes and 32 cattle referred for treatment to the university large animals teaching hospital with the complaint of gastrointestinal diseases constituted the study material. The cases were diagnosed based on history, clinical examination, hematology, biochemistry, radiography, peritoneal fluid analysis and ultrasonography, rumenotomy, and postmortem. A questionnaire was prepared containing important information on housing, husbandry practices, including feeding practices and individual animal information viz. age, species, month of the year, parity, gestation (month), and recent parturition. The animals were divided into eight groups and analysis of variance was performed to study risk factors associated with each condition.Results:The forestomach disorders are widely prevalent in cattle and buffaloes between April and October, during summer and rainy season (90%) and constituted a significant proportion of diseased cows and buffaloes (138/1840) at the hospital. Different forestomach disorders and their prevalence was: Diaphragmatic hernia (DH) 17%, traumatic reticuloperitonitis (TRP) 14%, idiopathic motility disorder or vagus indigestion (VI) 22%, adhesive peritonitis (AP) 13%, frank exudative peritonitis (FEP) 12%, reticular abscess (RA) 8%, ruminal and omasal impaction (RI) 5%, and abomaso duodenal ulceration (ADU) 9%. DH and RA were significantly more common in buffaloes as compared to cattle. Similarly, impactions were more in buffaloes but its incidence was very low (5%). ADU was present in buffalo as commonly as in cows. Exclusive feeding of wheat straw was present in an abysmally low number of animals and hence could not be considered the cause of these disorders. DH was significantly higher in buffaloes (>5 years) of 5-8 years of age and TRP, VI and AP were observed in cattle and buffalo of 2-8 years of age during the second half of gestation to 1 month post-calving. FEP (12%) occurred more commonly within 1 month of parturition.Conclusions:DH, TRP, frank and AP and ADU are causes of the widely prevalent forestomach (reticuloruminal, omasal and abomasal) disorders in cattle and buffaloes.
Highlights
Forestomach disorders occupy the center stage of large animal internal medicine and are one of the earliest reported problems of dairy animals
The cases were diagnosed based on history, clinical examination, hematology, biochemistry, radiography, peritoneal fluid analysis and ultrasonography, rumenotomy, and postmortem
The forestomach disorders are widely prevalent in cattle and buffaloes between April and October, during summer and rainy season (90%) and constituted a significant proportion of diseased cows and buffaloes (138/1840) at the hospital
Summary
Forestomach disorders occupy the center stage of large animal internal medicine and are one of the earliest reported problems of dairy animals. The anatomical structure and location makes them inaccessible to common clinical examination aids and they are placed pretty close to important organs like heart, lungs, liver and spleen. At times their pathologies involve these organs and vice-versa. Since long, these disorders were being referred to on the basis of symptoms, e.g. digestive disorders with overloading of forestomach and accumulation of gas in the dorsal rumen [1]. In the absence of proper etiological understanding, the nomenclature and classifications of these disorders were not properly defined and these were often subjectively referred to as vagus indigestion (VI) syndrome [2], a term coined without clear-cut evidence of major involvement of vagus nerve.
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