Antibiotic treatment ofin domestic sheep: Working at the livestock-wildlife interface in Yukon, Canada.

Abstract

Domestic sheepcan carry the bacteriumin their upper respiratory tract, often with little effect on health and productivity. However, for bighorn sheeppopulations, there is a link betweeninfection and pneumonia, poor lamb recruitment, and high fatality rate. Because of these outcomes, preventing transmission ofto free-ranging wild sheep has garnered interest from both the livestock and wildlife sectors. We hypothesized that treatment with intranasal and systemic enrofloxacin would reduce the prevalence of-positive animals in a flock of domestic sheep. Initially, the prevalence decreased in the treated group; but by 34 d post-treatment, the number of-positive sheep returned to near pretreatment prevalence. Key clinical message: Test-and-slaughter is a method used to reduce the risk of transmission of pneumonia-causingfrom domestic sheep and goats to free-ranging wild sheep. In an effort to find an alternative, we used enrofloxacin to treat a flock of-positive domestic sheep; however, long-term reduction ofprevalence in the flock was not achieved.