Livestock health & diseases

Western Australia’s freedom from many pests and diseases allows our livestock producers access to a wide range of international and domestic markets. To maintain this enviable biosecurity status, the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development ensures significant livestock disease is investigated. This information helps to assure trading partners that we are free of diseases.

Some diseases can have devastating effects on the livelihoods of everyone in the supply chain. To ensure the impacts on the economy and community are minimised, the department maintains trained, response-ready staff and systems to ensure an emergency animal disease incident is promptly and efficiently controlled. In addition, the risk of introduction of exotic disease is also managed by ensuring stockfeed contains appropriate ingredients.

Articles

  • Classical swine fever (CSF), also known as hog cholera, is a highly contagious disease of pigs caused by a pestivirus. The disease only affects pigs and is exotic to Australia.

  • The poultry biosecurity checklist summarises the actions needed to protect your poultry and the Western Australian poultry industry from the devastating effects of emergency diseases such as avian

  • Slender iceplant, Mesembryanthemum nodiflorum, is a small, succulent, winter-growing annual weed, most common in the eastern Wheatbelt.

  • Eperythrozoonosis is a disease in sheep and goats caused by the bacterium mycoplasma ovis (formerly known as eperythrozoon ovis).

  • This page describes the causes and signs of salt poisoning of livestock as well as how to treat and prevent the condition.

  • Grass tetany is a highly fatal disease associated with low levels of magnesium in the blood.

  • Pink eye or infectious bovine keratoconjunctivitis (IBK) is a common and contagious eye condition that affects cattle of all ages. It is most commonly seen in calves and young stock. 

  • There are multiple causes of infertility, abortion and stillbirths in cows. These include some diseases that are exotic to Western Australia and some zoonotic diseases.

  • Kikuyu (Pennisetum clandestimun) is a subtropical perennial grass with spring to autumn growth.

  • Mastitis is the term for a bacterial infection of the udder. It is most common in ewes raising multiple lambs or with high milk production.

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