Schmallenberg virus (SBV) has spread across Europe since mid-2011, causing unspecific and transitory symptoms in ruminants and congenital malformations in their offspring. Evidence for the impact of SBV on cattle (re)productive performance is limited. Using a comprehensive data set from a SBV-affected province in North-East Italy, this study aimed at assessing the potential impact of SBV emergence on 11 productive and reproductive performance indicators of dairy cattle herds, accounting for weather conditions and other herd-level factors that could also influence these indicators. A total of 127 farms with an average of 71 cows per farm (range 29–496) were monitored monthly from January 2009 to June 2012. Mixed-effects linear models for longitudinal data were used to assess the average variation in herds’ performance indicators over semesters (Jan-Jun 2009, Jul-Dec 2009, Jan-Jun 2010, Jul-Dec 2010, Jan-Jun 2011, Jul-Dec 2011, Jan-Jun 2012) and trimesters therein. Taking the second semester of 2011 as reference, significant decreases in the average lactation length (−6 days, on average) and calving-to-conception interval (−4 days, on average) were observed relative to the same semesters of the years 2010 and 2009, respectively. Similarly, during the last trimester of 2011, which is most likely to cover the SBV infection period in the study area, there was an average decrease of −4 days (lactation length) and −7 days (calving-to-conception interval) compared to the same trimesters of the years 2010 and 2009, respectively. However, the observed decreases actually represent a positive outcome that is not as such imputable to SBV emergence, but rather reflects other beneficial changes in farm management. None of the other indicators showed significant variations, confirming the relatively mild expression of SBV infection in cattle. Although the emergence of SBV might have significantly affected the (re)productive performance of some individual farms, we concluded that overall at the province level there were no significant variations attributable to SBV, at least not in a way that would lead to negative effects on farm profitability.

Honey bee mating is difficult to control as it occurs in flight, several kilometers away from the hive of origin of both queens and drones. In recent years, there has been an increase in the introduction into Italy of queen bees and swarms originating from interracial crossings (especially those known as “Buckfast”), or belonging to non-native subspecies. Consequently, there is a strong need to establish areas suitable for controlled mating. The Italian national beekeeping registry (BDNA) has been recently set up to monitor the position of apiaries and movement of hives, with the purpose of economic and sanitary protection and improvement of bee heritage and food safety. The BDNA was, thus, deemed a suitable tool to explore the availability of areas that could be used as mating stations. Specific criteria, such as not be classified as wetlands, altitude below 1500 m a.s.l., distance of at least 6000 m from an apiary, and distance of at least 1500 m from the national terrestrial border, were selected for defining the mating stations. Furthermore, all the remaining Italian national territory was considered suitable for settlement of mating stations, including towns, industrial settlements, and roads. Based on these criteria, the following methodological framework was applied: (1) collection of the required data (i.e., apiaries coordinates, geospatial data on soil classification, geospatial data on terrain altitude, Italian boundary geospatial data); (2) calculation for the excluded areas according with the criteria listed above; (3) calculation of the mating areas by means of the difference between the entire Italian territory and the excluded areas. The database of BDNA was used to identify them. Appropriate databases and software were used to exclude the areas of the Italian national territory that did not fulfill the established criteria. In this paper, we report the procedure applied to identify on maps the areas suitable for controlled mating of queen bees in the Italian national territory based on data currently available in the BDNA.

This trial evaluates the feasibility of using passive injectable transponders (PITs) in field operations by testing identification procedures on 185 one-year-old Biellese ewes reared under nomadic farming conditions. Commercial PITs of 3.85 +/- 0.05 mm x 31.2 mm were used at two application sites, the armpit and the retro-auricular region. The two application sites were compared taking into account the ease of injection, animal reaction, injection duration, inflammatory response, PIT readability at up to 12 months post-injection and PIT recovery at the slaughterhouse. The injection site influenced the reaction of the animal and the ease and duration of the injection, but it did not affect the palpation and the reading findings during the rearing period. The injection site also influenced the PIT retrieval at the slaughterhouse depending on the operator who recovered the PIT. The readability values observed at the end of the observation period for both injection sites (83% in the retro-auricular region and 79% in the armpit region) were too low to be suitable for long-term animal identification. In addition, the failed retrieval of PITs at slaughter, determined the destruction of 40 (22%) carcases to avoid any risks in the food chain. These findings suggest that the limited use of PITs is indicated when other methods of electronic identification cannot be employed, while a wider application of the device tested in the present study is not recommended in farming practices.

After 20 years of absence, rabies re-emerged in wild animals in north-eastern Italy in October 2008. Besides measures undertaken to fight the spread of infection in wildlife, vaccination against rabies was made compulsory for dogs living in the risk area. In the last 15 years, the veterinary authorities have focused on implementing computerized data collection systems in animal health, to serve as working tools for epidemiological surveillance activities and emergencies management. The prerequisite for implementing any data collection system is knowledge of the animal population. This also applies to the Canine Registry Data Bank, in which data on dogs and their movements, together with personal data on each owner and keeper, have been stored since 2003. The management information system has been updated and specific functions have been integrated in order to support the activity of both the veterinary services and the veterinary practitioners involved in the dog vaccination program. Vaccination became voluntary in February 2013. This paper describes implementation of the software and organization of data gathering, highlighting the benefits of computerized data compared to previously used paper-based data collection systems. The new functions, designed to centralize collection of uniform, updated vaccination data, have led to more efficient organization and better control of the vaccination plan. Automated information processing allowed vaccination operations to be supervised, incurred costs to be calculated, and vaccination coverage of the dog population to be monitored during the 3 years of compulsory vaccination.