section_path: Practices/Animal health
section_name: Animal health
paragraph_text: Animal health
  
  Good husbandry, proper feeding, and hygiene are the main contributors to animal health on the farm, bringing economic benefits through maximised production. When, despite these precautions, animals still become sick, they are treated with veterinary medicines, by the farmer and the veterinarian. In the European Union, when farmers treat their own animals, they are required to follow the guidelines for treatment and to record the treatments given. Animals are susceptible to a number of diseases and conditions that may affect their health. Some, like classical swine fever and scrapie are specific to one type of stock, while others, like foot-and-mouth disease affect all cloven-hoofed animals. Animals living under intensive conditions are prone to internal and external parasites; increasing numbers of sea lice are affecting farmed salmon in Scotland. Reducing the parasite burdens of livestock results in increased productivity and profitability.
  
  Where the condition is serious, governments impose regulations on import and export, on the movement of stock, quarantine restrictions and the reporting of suspected cases. Vaccines are available against certain diseases, and antibiotics are widely used where appropriate. At one time, antibiotics were routinely added to certain compound foodstuffs to promote growth, but this practice is now frowned on in many countries because of the risk that it may lead to antimicrobial resistance in livestock and in humans.
  
  Governments are concerned with zoonoses, diseases that humans may acquire from animals. Wild animal populations may harbour diseases that can affect domestic animals which may acquire them as a result of insufficient biosecurity. An outbreak of Nipah virus in Malaysia in 1999 was traced back to pigs becoming ill after contact with fruit-eating flying foxes, their faeces and urine. The pigs in turn passed the infection to humans. Avian flu H5N1 is present in wild bird populations and can be carried large distances by migrating birds. This virus is easily transmissible to domestic poultry, and to humans living in close proximity with them. Other infectious diseases affecting wild animals, farm animals and humans include rabies, leptospirosis, brucellosis, tuberculosis and trichinosis.