Chemical composition of the spinal cord in the normal developing fetus and in the premature foal.

The lipid content of spinal cord, expressed as a percentage of adult values, was considerably higher for newborn foals than for several other species and traces of esterified cholesterol (type A) were only rarely present in horse fetal cord (from 270 days gestational age onwards). This suggested that, at birth, the spinal cord is neurochemically more 'mature' in the horse than in cattle, sheep and pigs. Data for premature foals revealed no lipid abnormality suggestive of myelin immaturity or degeneration.

Fertility of bull spermatozoa in egg-yolk diluents of varied lipid fatty acid composition.

Three groups of hens were fed a standard egg-production mixture or similar diets enriched with either sunflower oil or beef tallow. The resulting egg yolks were used to prepare bovine semen diluents. Changes in the liquid fatty acid composition of the diluents were demonstrated by gas-liquid chromatography. No significant effects of the treatments were seen on bovine sperm motility after freezing and thawing, or on fertilty.

Bovine virus diarrhoea-mucosal disease virus: pathogenicity for the fetal calf following maternal infection.

Fifteen pregnant, bovine virus diarrhoea-mucosal disease (BVD-MD) antibody-free Jersey heifers were infected experimentally with a mixture of 10 cytopathic strains of BVD-MD virus isolated from cattle in Britain. Each cow was inoculated intramuscularly on gestation day 100 with a high or a low dose of virus grown in primary calf testis tissue cultures. None of the cows showed clinical signs of illness following exposure, but all had seroconverted within six weeks. Six fetuses, including one set of twins, died in utero following infection. Of these five were aborted between days 136 and 154; the sixth one was mummified and still retained at day 300. The remaining 10 fetuses survived to term, but all showed evidence of intrauterine growth retardation with or without gross malformation and/or dysmyelination of the central nervous system. Three were clinically affected with congenital nervous disease. Of the 10 liveborn fetuses, two had specific serum antibodies to BVD-MD. Non-cytopathic BVD-MD virus was recovered from all of the remaining eight. When non-immune cows become infected with BVD-MD virus in mid gestation: transplacental infection of the fetus will probably result; apart from the risk of fetal death, with or without abortion, there is a high probability of fetal mal-development which may not always be clinically obvious; the immunological competence of the fetus may be impaired; congenital infection is likely in a substantial proportion of liveborn calves. About one in 16 bovine fetuses in British herds are estimated to be at risk from BVD-MD virus infection.

Border disease: a sequential study of surviving lambs and an assessment of its effect on profitability.

Pregnant Dorset horn gimmers inoculated with a non-cytopathic strain of the border disease virus produced "hairy shaker" lambs that were individually affected to a varying degree. Surviving lambs were observed for a period of up to 20 weeks when neurological signs were seen to gradually disappear. During this time live virus was isolated from a wide variety of sites in nearly all of the infected lambs. The infected animals grew at a significantly slower rate compared with the controls, particularly during the first 15 weeks. Several morphological defects are described the most consistent being the decreased weight of the central nervous system. By 20 weeks body-weights were about 20 per cent lower and carcase quality scores were reduced. An assessment is made of the economic losses attributable to BD taking into consideration carcase quality at 20 weeks and the perinatal losses.