Modelling the effects of antimicrobial metaphylaxis and pen size on bovine respiratory disease in high and low risk fattening cattle

Table 1 Parameters used to characterize scenarios depending on pen size and risk level

Parameter name	Role	Small			Large
Parameter name	Role	LR	HRA	HR	LR	HRA	HR
pen_size	Size of each pen	10 [1]			100 [16]
metaphylaxis_threshold (best guess)	Proportion of cumulate detected cases with severe clinical signs above which collective treatment is triggered	0.4			0.15
use_antibioprevention	Use long-acting antimicrobials just before fattening	0	1	0	0	1	0
initial_prevalence (best guess)	Proportion of asymptomatic carriers (pI) at the beginning of fattening	0.1	0.15	0.3	0.02	0.1	0.2

Two pen sizes (“large” and “small”) and two risk levels (LR, low risk and HR, high risk) were considered. In addition, we also considered high risk pens with antibioprevention (HRA), i.e. where a collective treatment with long-acting antimicrobials is given to all animals before fattening, assuming a reduction of half of the initial prevalence.

ISSN: 1297-9716