Abstracts: Interferon therapies in small animals

Interferons (IFNs) are cytokines that play an important role in the immune response of animals and humans. A number of studies reviewed here have evaluated the use of human, canine and feline IFNs as treatments for infectious, inflammatory and neoplastic disease in dogs and cats. Recombinant canine IFN-γ is deemed an efficacious therapy for canine […]

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Abstracts: Equine sarcoids-causes, molecular changes, and clinicopathologic features: a review

Equine sarcoid is the most common skin tumour of horses. Clinically, it occurs as a locally invasive, fibroblastic, wart-like lesion of equine skin, which has 6 clinical classes: occult, verrucose, nodular, fibroblastic, mixed, and malignant. Sarcoids may be single but multiple lesions are more frequent. The typical histological feature is increased density of dermal fibroblasts […]

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Abstracts: Caffeine: A potential strategy to improve survival of neonatal pigs and sheep

Caffeine is commonly used to treat pre-and postnatal injuries, including apnoea in premature infants, as well as neurological impairment caused by hypoxia or asphyxiation often associated with difficult birthing. As an adenosine antagonist, caffeine is metabolised rapidly and transported into many tissues. Caffeine stimulates the brain respiratory centre, improving respiratory function in immature infants or […]

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Abstracts: Development of an ethogram/guide for identifying feline emotions

Background: An accurate assessment of feline behaviour is essential in reducing the risk of handler injury and evaluating/improving feline welfare within veterinary practices. However, inexperience and/or suboptimal education in feline behaviour may cause many veterinary professionals to be ill equipped for this. In addition, busy veterinary professionals may not have time to thoroughly search the literature […]

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Abstracts: Comparison of genetic merit for weight and meat traits between the polled and horned cattle in multiple beef breeds

Breeding for polled animals is deemed the most practical solution to eradicate horns naturally and circumvent management costs and risks on health and welfare. However, there has been a historical reluctance by some farmers to select polled animals due to perceived lower productivity of their calves.

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