WASHINGTON, Pa. – More than 100 sheep producers from Pennsylvania and surrounding states gathered March 3 at the Western Pennsylvania Sheep Symposium.
The one-day conference featured lectures on health, nutrition and the current state of the industry. Key speakers included William
WASHINGTON, Pa. – More than 100 sheep producers from Pennsylvania and surrounding states gathered March 3 at the Western Pennsylvania Sheep Symposium.
The one-day conference featured lectures on health, nutrition and the current state of the industry. Key speakers included William Shulaw, OSU Extension veterinarian; Harold Harpster, Penn State ruminant nutritionist; Alan Brinker, Ohio sheep and cattle producer, and Roger High, OSU Extension sheep specialist.
Shulaw presented lectures focusing on parasitism and diseases. The bulk of the presentation on diseases addressed scrapie, the ovine form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease.
According to Shulaw, the USDA has received sizable funding to eradicate scrapie and more research will be carried out in the next few months.
Shulaw emphasized symptoms could be any display of abnormal behavior, particularly uncoordination, reflexes that are not characteristic of the animal, and obvious weight loss.
The causes are still questionable, Shulaw said, although experts are pointing to the “prion” as a more likely trigger. A prion is an infected protein particle that has changed its shape. These prions can cause instability in the genetic code.
Shulaw said there are also two amino acids in cod