The 28th Meeting of Dairy Club (Joint Venture of Alltech and UVAS) was held on Monday October 07, 2013 at Syndicate Room UVAS.

Following was the agenda of meeting:

21 participants attended this meeting.

Dr. Muhammad Zafar Ullah Khan opened the house and gave warm welcome to the participants. He explained the agenda of the meeting.

Prof. Dr. Masood Rabbani presented lecture on Lab Tests needed for dairy animals and testing facilities available at UDL, UVAS, Lahore.

Bullet points of his presentation are as follows:

Problem Area

• Modern farm management
• Selection of Animals
• Selection of fodder
• Health & Environmental monitoring
• Vaccine & Vaccination
• Outbreak handling
• Marketing, Value addition & Exports

Factors promoting animal health:

• Effective vaccination & disease control programme
• Appropriate chemotherapy & strategic chemoprophylaxis
• Careful selection of replacement animals
• Optimal nutrition, pathogen free food & water
• Effective insect vector control measures
• Adequate floor space
• Regulated environmental temperature & ventilation

Selection for replacement animals:

• Small scale farming (Individual farmers)
• Large scale farming / Establishment of herds
• Export of animals / Establishment of SPU

Individual Farming:

• Hemoparasitic Examinations
• Coprological Examinations
• Brucella abortus through RBPT
• Intradermal tuberculin testing for TB

Total Cost = 340/animal

Establishment of herds:

1. Hemoparasitic Examinations
2. Coprological Examinations
3. Intradermal tuberculin testing
4. Serological Screening through ELISA
   1. Brucella abortus
   2. FMD
   3. Bovine Viral Diarrhoea
   4. Johnes Disease

Total Cost = 2240/animal

Animal Export:

1. Hemoparasitic Examinations
2. Coprological Examinations
3. Intradermal tuberculin testing
4. Serological Screening through ELISA
   1. Brucella abortus
   2. Foot & Mouth Disase (FMD)
   3. Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD)
   4. Johnes Disease (Bovine Paratuberculosis)
   5. Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis (IBR)
   6. Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia (CBPP)
   7. Blue Tongue
   8. Neospora
5. Serological Screening for Leptospira pomona
6. Analysis of Smegma for:
   1. Campylobacter fetus
   2. Trichomoniasis

Total cost = 5500/animal

Services for industrialists/exporter:

1. Feed Miller
   1. Concentrate formulation (Dept of Nutrition)
   2. Mineral Mixtures (Dept of Nutrition)
   3. Milk Boosters (Dept of Nutrition)
   4. Raw material (for fodder) testing
      1. Total viable & Coliform counts (UDL)
      2. Mycotoxins detection (QOL & Dept of Nutrition)
2. Meat Processor / exporter
   1. Testing of microorganisms of public health importance
   2. Antibiotic residue testing
3. Vaccine production unit
   1. Characterization of representative vaccinal strains
   2. Evaluation of vaccine quality

Conclusion:

1. Diverse & Cost effective Facilities for everyone:
   1. Small, resource less farmers
   2. Medium scale farmer
   3. Large scale enterprises
   4. Dairy operations
   5. Exporters
   6. Industrialists

Question/Answers/comments:

Ashraf Mughal: There should be some criteria while importing animals. When we are going to gift animals to any other country we have to perform a number of diagnostic test.

Dr. Rabbani: Yes there should be criteria for testing animals before they are imported. When we gifted buffalo heifers to Malaysia, we performed a number of tests and same tests were repeated in Malaysia with the same results. After repeating all tests those heifers were shifted to the farms.

Dr. Zafar Ullah Khan: Repeatability of lab tests is very good criteria to see the accuracy of the tests one lab is performing. It’s really worth appreciating that none of test gave different results while repeated in Malaysia.

Dr. Ilyas: Should we vaccinate the animals with imported vaccines even there is strain difference.

Dr. Rabbani: Till the time we don’t have our own local vaccines, we should use those vaccines.

Birg. Hamid: We need to have detailed information on vaccination of animals.

Dr. Rabbani: Detailed lecture will be planned on vaccination one of upcoming dairy club meeting.