Anaemia in East African short-horn Zebu calves : field diagnosis, infectious causes and pathogen interactions

Abstract

This study formed part of the collaborative IDEAL (Infectious Diseases of East African Livestock) project, which focused on the sedentary mixed crop-livestock smallholding system in Western Kenya. This was a longitudinal study where calves were recruited at birth and followed at 5-weekly intervals until 51 weeks of age. The main aim was to investigate the total disease burden of cattle in the study area for the first year of life. The main objectives of the study concerned anaemia as a syndrome in the calves. Anaemia can provisionally be diagnosed based on clinical signs, but a confirmatory diagnosis is based on measuring of red blood cell parameters, such as packed cell volume (PCV), red cell counts (RCC) or haemoglobin (HGB). The FAMACHA