FMD is severely contagious – in 2001 alone, the U.K had to euthanize over 6 million animals to finally stop the fast-moving epidemic. The reason that FMD is so feared among Farmers and the USDA is not purely the results of the disease, but the high rate at which it spreads. Death doesn’t occur in all cases, but the weakening effect on the animal keeps it from producing milk or meat in a normal capacity. FMD affects divided hoofed animals, like cattle, pigs, deer, and sheep by producing painful blisters that pop and become erosions. While the United States hasn’t had an outbreak of Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) since 1929, fear is still abundant due to the high mobility of livestock. If the farms in that area do not have an outbreak, they usually must still abide by the stop-movement order, which means they could lose money by not selling their mature livestock during that time. When an outbreak occurs, the USDA will place mandatory stop-movement orders or quarantines within a perimeter of the outbreak. The significance of this time period does not only affect farmers with infected cows or bulls, but all farms within a certain vicinity. Symptom gestation varies and not all records of buying and selling are kept electronically because of this, sometimes it takes weeks or even months to identify the cause of a single outbreak. Once symptoms begin in one animal, farmers with animals which had contact with that herd can be warned so they can take action and prevent the infection from spreading to other farms. Common diseases on farms include Foot-and-Mouth Disease, BVD (Bovine Viral Diarrhea), and Bovine tuberculosis, all of which are highly contagious and can spread quickly throughout a herd causing a variety of effects depending on the disease and animal. When farmers buy, sell, or trade livestock, cohabitating animals from different environments are at risk for developing or transmitting diseases to the new area – even if they currently do not show symptoms. Managing and preventing the spread of disease is, perhaps, the most important aspect of tracking individual livestock. Not only is livestock identification important on individual farms, but it is also important when buying, selling, and transporting livestock. Frame Score (height & weight estimates).By placing an ear tag on a calf at birth, a farmer can immediately start tracking that individual animal’s specific data. Additionally, every animal in a herd must be monitored throughout its lifetime. Individually identifying livestock is essential to managing a herd as it provides a means to uniquely identify a specific animal if one becomes lost or stolen. Both domestic animals and livestock are commonly implanted with a chip, collared, tattooed, or tagged with a plastic or metal plate to identify them visually or electronically. Tagging an animal with numbered identification has many uses depending on the type of animal, but, generally, it is used for differentiating animals from one another.
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