Livestock Economics, Marketing and Business Management

Measurable effects of diseases of livestock profitability

MEASURABLE EFFECTS OF DISEASES ON LIVESTOCK PROFITABILITY

Premature Death

• This is the easiest of all consequences of diseases.
• In economic studies, death loss can be measured as a difference between the potential market value and its value when dead ( which may not be zero), less the costs which would have been incurred in obtaining market value (extra feed, care to market age, marketing cost etc.).

Changed value of animal and products from slaughter animal

• Diseased animals may have lower marketing value either due to visible lesions or due to indirect changes in appearance or body confirmation which make them less attractive.
• This reduced value may be due to changes in the ratio of meat to fat or meat to bone.
• Presence of lesions of zoonotic diseases may render animal totally unfit for consumption from aesthetic point of view.
• Some external parasitic diseases cause reduction value of skin/hides to their uses.

Reduced Live weight Gain

• It is well known fact that diseased animal gain weight more slowly than equivalent disease free animals.

Reduced Yield and Quality of Products from Live Animals

• Yield of animal products like milk, wool and meat may be reduced by disease.
• Quality of these products may also be reduced in term of change in milk composition (in mastitis) and change in wool quality.
• In case of yield reduction, price of commodity will fall and livestock producer will suffer. But in case of quality change, consumer will suffer the loss.

Reduced Capacity for works

• Most important use of animal in developing country is as a source of traction. There are certain disease like FMD causing reduced capacity to work.
• Disease can severely curtail rice paddy field preparation and other task for which animals are essentials. So this is essential economic loss of producing field.

Altered production of dung for fuel and fertilizer

• Dung is used as cooking fuel in most developing countries, apart from using it as fertilizer.
• Disease which cause high metabolic rate will indirectly influence rumen metabolism by reducing the supply of dung.

Altered feed conversion efficiency

• Feed conversion efficiency is the ultimate measure of influence of disease on the production process, but its measure require accurate measurement of feed intake which is possible only under controlled feeding.
• In grazing system, it is reasonable to take changes in feed as an adequate indication of change in feed conversion efficiency when comparing diseased and disease free animals kept under identical condition.

Effect of Disease on herd productivity

• Effect of disease spreads from individual animal to broader extent of herd management.

Reduced Productive life of animal

• Reduced productive life of animal is due to increased culling which might be due to reason of low yield or disease or unawareness of facts to farmers.

Less accurate genetic selection

• If a disease alters any of the components of productivity which are the subject of genetic selection pressure in the herd (milk or wool yield), it will affect efficiency with which animals of superior genetic merits are identified.

Effect on capacity to maintain and improve the herd

• If less progeny born, fewer animals are available as herd replacement or for sale to market products.
• Thus not only livestock sale income reduced but also management flexibility for herd improvement will be curtailed.
• It will lead to the purchase of breeding animals with all the additional risks that exists.
• For example, liver fluke and other gastro-intestinal parasites have been shown to affect reproductive performance in ewes.
• In cattle, bovine leucosis and ephemeral fever have been reported to affect reproduction.

Effects of disease control measures on productivity of animals

• In evaluating economic benefit of disease control, it is necessary to consider not only the difference in productivity between diseased and healthy animals, but also the change in productivity following elimination of a disease from an affected animal i.e. as in mastitis and worm infestation.
• Thus selection of an economically optimal control strategy will be strongly influenced by this consideration.