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It was recognised in the design phase of this project that not every death would be able to be necropsied. The aim was to have necropsies completed on sufficient numbers of dead
animals to allow characterisation of the major causes of death.
The results clearly indicate that AAVs were completing forms mainly for those animals that were necropsied and not for all deaths. Information on total numbers of deaths for each
voyage was then sourced from other data sources for analysis including voyage mortality reports tabled in parliament and available from the Department of Agriculture website and
the Shipboard Mortality Database.
7.5 Clinical presentation
Clinical signs recorded by the AAVs were reviewed and grouped into categories for reporting and analysis Table 5.
Table 5: Summary of the clinical category recorded for 215 cattle dying on participating voyages
Manner of death Row total as
of grand total Clinical category
Found dead
Euthanased Not
recorded Total
Lameness 10
19 2
31 14.4
RecumbencyWeakness 8
20 3
31 14.4
Ill-thriftShy feeder 16
5 2
23 10.7
Respiratory signs 11
2 2
15 7.0
Neurological signs 3
7 10
4.7 Misadventure
5 3
8 3.7
Sudden death 1
1 0.5
Urinary signs 1
1 0.5
Pink eye 1
1 0.5
No previous clinical signs 79
79 36.7
No clinical category recorded 1
14 15
7.0 Grand totals
135 57
23 215
100.0 Of those animals that were found dead, most n=79 were recorded as having shown no
previous clinical signs. This is likely to reflect difficulties associated with intermittent observations of pens across the entire ship rather than evidence that most animals truly
show no clinical signs prior to death.
Of the remaining 56 animals, the most common clinical signs recorded prior to death were ill- thrift andor shy feeders n=16, respiratory signs n=11, lameness n=10, and recumbency
andor weakness n=8.
The five animals classified as ‘misadventure’ were found dead with their head stuck under a
pen rail, and were assumed to have died from circulatory collapse and asphyxiation as a result of being cast.
Four of the animals classified as ‘lameness’ had been sedated for treatment of the lameness
and had failed to recover from the anaesthetic.
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Fifty-seven animals were euthanased, with the most common reasons being for recumbency andor weakness n=20 and for lameness that was not responsive to treatment n=19.
Seven animals were recorded as having neurological signs prior to euthanasia and two with respiratory signs that were not responsive to treatment. Of the three animals euthanased
due to misadventure, one went down in the race during discharge and would not stand up again, one was found trapped in a gate and the other was found with severe preputial
bruising.
When all records were combined, the major identified clinical categories recorded for mortalities in order from most to least important were lameness, recumbency andor
weakness, ill-thrift shy feeder, respiratory signs, neurologic signs and misadventure.
7.6 Gross pathology
