Abstract
Veal calves undergo many challenges in the early stages of their life. Such challenges, including mixing procedures and transportation of calves to the veal farm, may have a negative influence on growth rate, feed intake, metabolism, immunity and disease susceptibility of calves. As a consequence, many hematological, physiological, metabolic and immunological parameters of stressed calves might be altered on arrival at the veal farm. Some of these response variables might be useful as biomarkers of performance of calves at the veal farm as they might provide information about an ongoing disease process, or may predict future diseases. Biomarkers might be helpful to group and manage calves in different risk categories after arrival. By adopting treatment decisions and protocols on a risk-group or individual basis, it would be possible to improve animal health and reduce both disease incidence and antibiotic use. Moreover, the use of biomarkers might be an economically feasible approach as some of them do not need invasive techniques and others can be measured in blood already taken during routine checks. Previous literature mainly assessed the physiological responses of calves to transportation. However, information on the link between on-farm arrival data and future health and performance of veal calves is limited. This review, therefore, examined a wide range of papers and aimed to identify potential biomarkers of future health and performance.
Highlights
The veal industry plays an important role worldwide as side market of the dairy industry [1]
All variables discussed in this paragraph are correlated with dehydration and packed cell volume (PCV) seems to be the most suitable and practical on farm biomarker
This might be the result of the degradation of muscle glycogen due to stress or exhaustion, that causes the liberation of catecholamines and a rapid glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis [112]
Summary
Reviewed by: Nils Fall, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden Christoph Winckler, Universität für Bodenkultur Wien, Austria. Veal calves undergo many challenges in the early stages of their life Such challenges, including mixing procedures and transportation of calves to the veal farm, may have a negative influence on growth rate, feed intake, metabolism, immunity and disease susceptibility of calves. Many hematological, physiological, metabolic and immunological parameters of stressed calves might be altered on arrival at the veal farm. Some of these response variables might be useful as biomarkers of performance of calves at the veal farm as they might provide information about an ongoing disease process, or may predict future diseases. Information on the link between on-farm arrival data and future health and performance of veal calves is limited. This review, examined a wide range of papers and aimed to identify potential biomarkers of future health and performance
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 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 callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
