ABSTRACT
Maintaining sheep flock health: an overview Neil Sargison, University of Edinburgh, UK
1 Introduction
2 The global role of farming small ruminants
3 Efficiency of global ruminant livestock production
4 Ecological impact of small ruminants
5 Genetic improvement of sheep and technological advances
6 Improving small ruminant production efficiency through animal health management
7 Sheep health management
8 Sheep flock health planning
9 Sheep nutritional management
10 Biosecurity of individual sheep flocks
11 Case study: applying principles of sheep flock health planning to lamb growth rates
12 Case study: parasitic nematode control in sheep as a globally important health management challenge
13 Summary
14 Where to look for further information
15 References
Radical improvement in the efficiency of biological production from livestock is a fundamental challenge facing humanity to meet the rapidly increasing food security needs of the world’s growing population of over 7 billion. Sheep farming cannot be dissociated from other livestock or crop production, which in turn must be considered as part of integrated agricultural systems. These systems must meet the needs of humanity for food security, while being economically, environmentally (carbon efficient) and socially sustainable. However, sustainable agriculture is threatened by a global reduction in available productive land, regional scarcities of replenishable water (Godfray et al., 2010) and the inevitable failure of
drug and chemical control of disease (Beddington, 2010). These threats are compounded by effects of population growth itself, urbanisation and affluence, climate change and hitherto irresponsible use of drugs and chemicals. Each of these factors must be accounted for when considering the sustainability of planned small ruminant health management.
