Review on Clinical Management Involving Respiratory Diseases in Ruminants

Respiratory system disease is one of the most common problems of ruminants worldwide and has been classified as one of the costliest diseases. Diseases involving respiratory system in small and large ruminants can be caused by virus, bacteria and fungi. These disorders may lead to reductions in both production and economic gains. The most important diagnostic tool in diagnosing respiratory diseases is through general evaluation of the patient and the herd history. The common clinical signs and responses of animals infected with respiratory diseases are presence fever (pyrexia), loss of appetite, nasal discharge (serous or mucoid), coughing, sneezing, showing signs of difficulty in breathing (dyspnea), and abnormal lung sound upon auscultation where this will allow to score the different severity status of pneumonia. Lung auscultation scoring is essential in diagnosing respiratory disease and is a systematic approach method that could be adopted to detect, identify and differentiate the degree of severity in ruminant pneumonia cases that will aid in clinical management of the disease during drafting the treatment plan or therapeutic regime. There is a limited review on clinical management of respiratory diseases involving ruminants. Hence, this review aims at focusing on the clinical management of common respiratory diseases involving ruminants. Therefore, this review may enlighten the field veterinarians on the common respiratory diseases of small and large ruminants and its clinical management.