DISEASES ON A FARM 

Do you like to drink milk? Do you want good fresh milk? I know that I want fresh milk when I wake up in the morning and drink some coffee or with my chocolate milk. Farmers that milk cows, have a really special and important job. The milkers have to take their job serious and must be very conservative. If they don't make sure that they pre dip and strip the tits to check for mastitis then when the milk company comes to get the milk and there is any mastitis then the truck driver from the milk company must dump out the whole tank of milk. Mastitis is an infection in the tit of a cow. You can tell if the cow has mastitis by looking at the milk when you strip it if the milk is bloody and chunky. After the milk gets dumped out the farmer must buy the whole tank of milk and usually when that happens the farmer goes bankrupted. Mastitis is something that is treatable if you catch it and treat it at the very beginning of the disease. Do you like to eat bacon with your eggs in the morning? Well there is a Virus called Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus (PEDV). This virus had its first outbreak in the United States in 2013. This was a horrible virus it killed thousands of pigs. Farmers lost a lot of animals and money. As soon as one pig got it almost immediately all pigs got it and died it less than an hour because they have very bad diarrhea and that drains out all of the fluids and the pig runs out of energy and dies. I love showing swine. I remember my first year showing in the summer of 2013. The leaders of my group were very protective about making sure the animals are always healthy. All swine was not to be hauled on trailer and exported to any other farms or butcher shops. We all love eating turkey and chicken on Thanksgiving right? Still going on today is a Flu called Avian Flu. The disease clobbered the state's turkey and chicken industries last spring with over $600 million in losses. Researchers are still not sure how this disease could have traveled to over 100 farms just in one state. Most poultry farmers are now getting smarter and are controlling the farms better and becoming more cleaner and protected on what goes on around the farms.  

RESOURCES: http://nationalhogfarmer.com/health/porcine-epidemic-diarrhea-virus-faq-and-survival-tips http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/09/22/turkey-farms-avian-flu https://www.google.com/search?q=avian+flu+on+farms&biw=1366&bih=657&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj3mc6_qtDJAhWKlR4KHf8MAeoQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=xH0-kKbIl-fKwM%3A