Enterotoxemia

Enterotoxemia  is a non-febrile acute disease mainly of sheep and less of goats and other animals occurring suddenly in healthy animals of all ages and spreading throughout the world.

It is due to Clostridium perfringens, which produces toxins of six types (A, B, C, D, E and F), of which the following three are essential:

Type B lamb dysentery (Lamb dysentery), found in both poles and calves.

Type C hemorrhagic enterotoxemia in sheep (Struck).

Type D enterotoxemia of sheep and less often of goats and calves (Pulpy-kidney disease, Overeating).

Predisposing causes for the outbreak of the disease are severe parasitism of the animals from the rounds, cold during grazing in the morning and excessive food.

The disease occurs suddenly, often with sudden deaths of the most well-fed sheep or lambs before symptoms even appear. When infected with the disease, other animals show cerebral symptoms, such as back pain, indifference, circular motion, and fall into obstacles.

In type C, hemorrhagic diarrhea is observed, while in type B of lamb dysentery, there is foul-smelling diarrhea, sometimes hemorrhagic.

The diagnosis is based on the above symptoms and the detection of the toxin in the intestinal contents, which is done by inoculation in experimental animals. The diagnosis can even be made by detecting the germ by culturing a sample of intestinal contents. Infected animals can be treated with antitoxin (serum), i.e. with temporary passive immunity.

To prevent the disease, all healthy animals are vaccinated with a multivalent vaccine to cover all types of the bacterium. The vaccination should be repeated every six months.

In order to exclude the predisposing factors of the disease, it is necessary to avoid going out to graze, when there is morning frost, to fight the parasitization of the animals with antiparasitics regularly and to avoid polyphagia.