Nociceptive threshold, blood constituents and physiological values in 213 cows with locomotion scores ranging from normal to severely lame

Tadich, N.; Tejeda, Carlos; Bastias, S.; Rosenfeld, Cheryl S.; Green, Laura

doi:10.1016/j.tvjl.2013.01.029

Cited by 37 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…In cattle, serum haptoglobin concentration increases in cases of acute, sub-acute and chronic inflammation (Alsemgeest et al, 1994). It is elevated in cows with all levels of lameness, from mild to severe, compared with sound cows (Jawor et al, 2008;Smith et al, 2010;Tadich et al, 2013). Thus it is unsurprising that lame cows tended to have higher levels of both circulating haptoglobin and haptoglobin mRNA expression, and our study confirms that elevated haptoglobin levels appear to be a reliable measure of lameness associated inflammation.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

“…They also had a higher cortisol:DHEA ratio, which is often used as an indicator of inflammation. Moreover the acute phase protein, haptoglobin, is elevated in lame cows (Jawor et al, 2008;Tadich et al, 2013), which in turn could drive up total serum protein levels (Jawor et al, 2008). Contrarily, serum urea is lower in sheep and beef cattle that have been exposed to acute stressors (Galyean et al, 1981;Apple et al, 1993).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Differences in leukocyte profile, gene expression, and metabolite status of dairy cows with or without sole ulcers

O’Driscoll

McCabe

Earley

2015

Journal of Dairy Science

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Interpretive summary Sole ulcers affect dairy cow immune status by O'Driscoll et alDairy cows afflicted with sole ulcers are often clinically lame, and experience pain and impaired welfare. However little is known of the cows' stress and immune response to sole ulcers. This study demonstrated that cows that are affected with sole ulcers, and clinically lame, had a different leukocyte gene expression profile to healthy cows. They also had higher concentrations of the stress hormone, cortisol, the endogenous precursor steroid hormone -DHEA, and the various metabolites that are suggestive of systemic inflammation and stress. ABSTRACTSole ulcers are one of the most severe lameness causing pathologies for dairy cows and are associated with abnormal behaviour and impaired production performance. However, little is known about how or whether lameness caused by sole ulcers affects the cow systemically. This study compared haematology profile, leukocyte gene expression, and physiological responses (metabolite, cortisol, the endogenous steroid hormone -DHEA, and haptoglobin concentrations) of cows with sole ulcers and healthy cows. Twelve clinically lame cows (LAME) were identified as having at least one sole ulcer, and no other disorder and matched with a cow that had good locomotion and no disorders (SOUND), using days in milk, liveweight, body condition score and diet. Blood samples were taken from all 24 cows within 24h of sole ulcer diagnosis. Leukocyte counts were obtained using an automated cell counter, cortisol and DHEA concentration by ELISA, and plasma haptoglobin (Hb), urea, total protein, creatine kinase and glucose were analysed on an Olympus analyser. Expression of 16 genes associated with lameness or stress were estimated using qRT-PCR. Data were analysed using the Mixed procedure in SAS (v 9.3). LAME cows had a higher neutrophil %, a numerically lower lymphocyte %, and tended to have a higher neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio than SOUND. Serum cortisol and DHEA concentrations were higher in LAME than in SOUND cows. LAME cows also tended to have higher haptoglobin and glucose levels than SOUND, as well as higher protein yet lower urea levels. SOUND cows tended to have higher relative expression of the gene coding for colony stimulating factor 2 than LAME, but in all other cases where differences were detected in cytokine gene expression (IL-1α, IL-1β, CXCL8 and IL-10), relative gene expression in SOUND cows tended to be, or was, lower than in LAME.Relative expression of MMP-13, GR-α, Fas, haptoglobin and CD62L were, or tended to be, higher in LAME than SOUND cows. A high neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio in combination with higher cortisol levels in cows with ulcers is indicative of physiological stress. Moreover, increased DHEA and a higher cortisol:DHEA ratio, as well as a tendency for higher haptoglobin levels and increased 5 haptoglobin mRNA expression are indicative of systemic inflammation. Increased cytokine mRNA expression indicates activation of the immune system compared with healthy cows. Increased express...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in leukocyte profile, gene expression, and metabolite status of dairy cows with or without sole ulcers

O’Driscoll

McCabe

Earley

2015

Journal of Dairy Science

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“…Tadich et al (2013) did not find consistent associations between the outcome variables related to pain threshold and inflammation and parity or stage of lactation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 58%

Impact of subclinical and clinical mastitis on sensitivity to pain of dairy cows

Peters

Silveira

Fischer

2015

Animal

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A total of 90 cows from three commercial farms were used to evaluate the relationship between subclinical mastitis and clinical mastitis and thermal nociceptive threshold. Milk strips from all udder quarters were tested for clinical mastitis with visual inspection of milk and udder alterations and for subclinical mastitis using California Mastitis Test. Milk yield was recorded, milk was sampled and further analyzed for somatic cells count (SCC). Cows were considered healthy when SCC < 200 000 cells/ml and no visual alterations in milk and/or udder, with mild subclinical mastitis when SCC > 200 000 cells/ml and no visual alterations in milk and/or udder, with moderate subclinical mastitis when SCC > 500 000 cells/ml and no visual alterations in milk and/or udder and with clinical mastitis when visual alterations in milk and/or udder were detected. Nociceptive threshold was evaluated with the thermal threshold meter apparatus applied to the rear legs. Thermal threshold (TT) decreased when we compared healthy cows with cows presenting clinical mastitis and tended to decrease when we compare healthy cows with those with moderate subclinical mastitis. TT was lower at the ipsilateral rear leg compared with the contralateral leg to the infected mammary gland. TT linearly decreases as log10 SCC increased and it showed sharp decrease as log10 SCC exceed the value of 6.4. Increase in one unit of log10 SCC increased the odds of low thermal threshold (lower than 55.8°C). Subclinical mastitis might be a welfare issue as it tended to decrease nociceptive thermal threshold.

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“…Hence, when reporting lameness indicator figures in a herd, it would be relevant to show not only the proportion of very lame cows (score 4 and 5) but also the proportion of very sound cows (score 1). Accordingly, Tadich et al (2013) demonstrated that an acute-phase protein-used as inflammation and welfare indicator (haptoglobin)-was increased in cows with locomotion score >1, compared with cows with score 1 that had a normal level of plasma concentration, thus concluding it was a sensitive measure of pain due to lameness. However, assessing pain visually is challenging, which was highlighted by the agreement results of observers who preferred this attribute, and more research is needed to understand how objective pain assessments correlate with visual observations.…”

Section: Final Remarksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experienced and inexperienced observers achieved relatively high within-observer agreement on video mobility scoring of dairy cows

García

Konig

Allesen-Holm

et al. 2015

Journal of Dairy Science

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Assessment of lameness prevalence and severity requires visual evaluation of thelocomotion of a cow. Welfare schemes including locomotion assessments are increasingly being adopted, and more farmers and their veterinarians might implement a locomotion-scoring routine together. However, high within-observer agreement is a prerequisite for obtaining valid mobility scorings, and within-observer agreement cannot be estimated in a barn, because the gait of cows is dynamic and may change between 2 occasions. The objective of this study was to estimate the within-observer agreement according to the observers' educational background and experience with cattle, based on video recordings with very diverse types of gait. Groups of farmers, bovine veterinarians, first- and fourth-year veterinary students, researchers, and cattle-inexperienced sensory assessors evaluated mobility using a 5-point mobility score system developed specifically for walking cows (n=102 observers). The evaluation sessions were similar for all groups, lasted 75 min, and were organized as follows: introduction, test A, short training session, break, and test B. In total, video recordings of 22 cows were displayed twice in a random order (11 cows in each test × 2 replicates). Data were analyzed applying kappa coefficient, logistic regression, and testing for random effects of observers. The crude estimates of 95% confidence interval for weighted kappa in test A and B ranged, respectively, from 0.76 to 0.80 and 0.70 to 0.75. When adjusting for the fixed effects of video sample and gait scoring preferences, the probability of assigning the same mobility score twice to the same cow varied from 55% (sensory assessors) to 72% (fourth-year veterinary students). The random effect of the individual observers was negligible. That is, in general observers could categorize the mobility characteristics of cows quite well. Observers who preferred to assess the attributes back arch or the overall mobility score (based on uneven gait) had the highest agreement, respectively, 69 or 68%. The training session seemed insufficient to improve agreement. Nonetheless, even novice observers were able to achieve perfect agreement up to 60% of the 22 scorings with merely the experience obtained during the study (introduction and training session). The relatively small differences between groups, together with a high agreement, demonstrate that the new system is easy to follow compared with previously described scoring systems. The mobility score achieves sufficiently high within-observer repeatability to allow between-observer agreement estimates, which are reliable compared with other more-complex scoring systems. Consequently, the new scoring scale seems feasible for on-farm applications as a tool to monitor mobility within and between cows, for communication between farmers and veterinarians with diverse educational background, and for lamenessbenchmarking of herds.

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Nociceptive threshold, blood constituents and physiological values in 213 cows with locomotion scores ranging from normal to severely lame

Cited by 37 publications

References 44 publications

Differences in leukocyte profile, gene expression, and metabolite status of dairy cows with or without sole ulcers

Differences in leukocyte profile, gene expression, and metabolite status of dairy cows with or without sole ulcers

Impact of subclinical and clinical mastitis on sensitivity to pain of dairy cows

Experienced and inexperienced observers achieved relatively high within-observer agreement on video mobility scoring of dairy cows

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