CAL: observational skills

Question 1

What should you note during an examination of farm animals?

Answer 1

• General information - species, breed(s), sex, age
• Husbandry and environment - housed/outside, bedding, stocking density, hygiene, food type, amount of food available
• Attitude and demeanour of animals, note whether any appear abnormal (e.g. depressed, separated from group, behavioural evidence of neurological disease or pruritis)
• Size, approximate weight and size variation
• Hair coat/skin/fleece - loss, lesions, photosensitivity
• Lameness or limb abnormalities
• Diarrhoea or evidence of diarrhoea
• Lesions
• Coughing?
• Smell – e.g. footrot and blowfly strike have a very distinctive smell

Question 2

What does poor quality grass look like?

Answer 2

short with a lot of dead matter

Question 3

If you have 200 ewes in a pen, how many would you turn over to investigate lameness?

Answer 3

at least 5-10 but you may need to turn them all over if you need to apply appropriate treatment such as ABs for footrot.

Question 4

When should you examine farm animals with a physical exam?

Answer 4

• In the case of a disease or production problem affecting the entire group, examine a selection of the worst affected +/- some of the not so badly affected animals
• Where a single or small number of animals are seen to be abnormal - examine these
• Examining a ‘random selection’ of animals is rarely rewarding but it might be justified in some situations