Clarifying dairy calf mortality phenotypes through postmortem analysis.

ABSTRACT: Health problems can be thought of as phenotypic expressions of the complex relationships between genes, environments, and phenomes as a whole. Detailed evaluations of phenotypic expressions of illness are required to characterize important biological outcomes. We hypothesized that classifying dairy calf mortality phenotypes via a systematic postmortem analysis would identify different cause-of-death diagnoses than those derived from treatments alone. This cross-sectional study was carried out on a dairy calf ranch in the northwestern United States from June to September 2017 and focused on calves ≤90 d of age. Comparisons were made between causes of death based on 3 levels of information: on-farm treatment records alone, necropsy-based postmortem analyses in addition to treatment records,

SUBMITTER: McConnel CS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7094407 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature