Giuseppe Rubino

Tolerance to Tick-Borne Diseases in Sheep: Highlights of a Twenty-Year Experience in a Mediterranean Environment

The European landscape is characterised by a range of diverse farming systems. These relate not only to varied geographical environments and animal genetic resources, but also to different social and cultural contexts for farming and food production. This diversity is unique to Europe and, among the European countries, Italy is the home for a great variety of native breeds because of its complex orography and its long boot shape with very different climatic conditions from north to south. In the 1980’s, two of us moved from northern Italy to Apulia and soon came to appreciate the differences between the biotic and abiotic features of northern environment and the Apulian one. One of the most impressive differences were the enzootic tick borne diseases (TBD) and the related responses of the animals. As a consequence, much of our professional life has been devoted to the challenges posed by the diseases and to the study of the genetic peculiarities of native breeds both per se and in terms of their tolerance to TBD. This report is a review of the results obtained in a 20-year experience investigating the haematological features and tolerance to tick-borne diseases in Mediterranean native sheep breeds mainly Apulian native breeds compared to exotic breeds under various experimental conditions. In the wake of William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), a pioneer in thermodynamics and electricity, who said in 1891 that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, but when you cannot measure it, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind, the central concept or research theme that guided all our research efforts stems from the notion that direct measurement of disease phenotypes and/or physiological features such as the hematological pattern provides a direct assay for measuring disease changes and the attitude of a genetic pool in facing disease. The work is concerned with the following main issues:  Haematological pattern of Apulian native sheep breeds  Breeds and tolerance to TBD in Apulia  Response to experimental anaemia  Response to Anaplasma ovis infection in experimentally infected sheep.

Improvement of sheep welfare and milk production fed on diet containing hydroponically germinating seeds.

Abstract Plasma cortisol and milk production responses of 45 lactating Comisana sheeps (4th5th parity), divided into three homogeneous groups of 15 subject each, were used to evaluate the effects of two different levels of partial substitution of a complete feed with hydroponically germinating seeds. Germinated oat was employed after 7 days of hydroponic growth. The three groups received the following diets: Control group (T) received only complete feed. The other 2 groups were fed on diet containing different levels of hydroponically germinating oat (1,5 kg – group A; 3 kg – group B). All the subjects have shown to accept the diets because the per capita ration was always completely consumed. In the second month, the A and B groups showed lower average values of cortisol (P<0.01) and a statistically significant increase in milk production as compared to T (P<0.05 and P<0.001). The obtained data induced to conclude that integration with hydroponically germinating oat in partial substitution of the complete feed does not modify biochemical and hematological parameters and seems to produce an improvement in animal welfare and production of milk.

Impact of Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis on profit efficiency in semi-extensive dairy sheep and goat farms of Apulia, southern Italy

A recent study on paratubercolosis in semi-extensive dairy sheep and goat farms in Apulia revealed a flock positivity of 60.5% and a seroprevalence of 3.0% for sheep and 14.5% for goat, with peaks of 50%. In such a context, providing detailed economic information is crucial for the implementation of a suitable control plan. In this paper we investigated the impact of Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) on profit efficiency of the Apulian dairy sheep and goat farms. Empirical results through a stochastic frontier model showed that the uninfected farms had a mean level of profit efficiency of 84%, which dropped to 64% in the presence of paratubercolosis as it negatively affected the productivity of feeding, veterinary and labour factors. Structural, managerial and production aspects were involved in the greater inefficiency of the infected farms compared to the uninfected ones: lower experience and schooling of farmers, no access to credit, fewer family members (women in particular) participating in the farming activities, high density of animals per hectare, small flocks, high number of goats in mixed flocks, no confinement practices for young and purchased animals and no pasture rotation. Hence, targeted interventions on these factors by decision makers can ensure effectiveness and efficiency to veterinary and economic action plans.

Relationships among functional markers, management, and husbandry in sheep: a Mediterranean case study

Most sheep farmers are aware of the importance of monitoring animal health and well-being for profitable sheep production. Unfortunately, there are only a few benchmarked functional measures of sheep well-being but much can be gained from our understanding of other species. Moreover, comprehensive monitoring programs may be complex and relatively expensive to implement. Hence, this work reports the results of a research study on the usefulness of functional markers in measuring dairy sheep well-being, taking into account farm management and environmental conditions. The study was conducted on 11 farms breeding Italian islander sheep breeds. The husbandry and management parameters of each farm were assessed and, based on the findings, the farms were scored in ascending quality order. Flock information concerned housing, milking system, pen size, grazing hours, health management, and stockmanship. Medical history, clinical data, the most relevant haematological, chemical and biochemical parameters, as well as the haemoglobin genotype were recorded for 415 individuals. The whole data-set was analyzed by Spearman correlation and multivariate statistical procedures, showing that albumin, serum alkaline phosphatase, haematocrit, and haemoglobin were the most significant functional markers of a flock’s general conditions. Haematocrit and haemoglobin reflect animal health status, while albumin and serum alkaline phosphatase are a measure of nutritional status and physical activity, respectively. These are objective parameters, which can be easily measured from blood samples and have proved to be effective for grouping to interpret animal well-being.