Journal of Istanbul Veterinary Sciences

Abstract

At the top of veterinarians' main tasks comes to treat sick animals. But the main goal is to protect animals
from being sick. Preventive medicine practices are much more preliminary in livestock. Vaccination is the
first to come to mind in preventive medicine, but preventive medicine practices are not limited to
vaccination alone. The main goal in food animals is to keep animals healthy and productive together with
the prevention of infectious diseases. If the yield of an animal without any infectious disease is not
sufficient, it cannot be mentioned that the animal is healthy. In this sense, subclinical metabolic diseases
are more prominent than clinical diseases. One of the most important methods of preventing infectious
diseases is vaccination. However, vaccination alone is not the solution and biosecurity measures must be
adhered to in farms. In addition to preventing external threats in biosecurity rules, necessary measures
should be taken to reduce internal risks. Vaccination should be carried out according to the rules related to
the inactive or live vaccine. Despite vaccinations, the greatest losses in farm animals are in newborns.
Because ruminants are born hypogamaglobulinemic due to the structure placenta, they are protected by
immunoglobulins during the first 1-2 months which they will take with their mother's colostrum. In order
to protect neonatal offspring, pregnant cows, sheep and goats are vaccinated, but if the offspring do not
get enough colostrum, the vaccine target is not reached and this situation is a big problem in our country.
In order for vaccinations to be successful, there must be a separate vaccination program and vaccination
schedule for each farm. Another step of preventive medicine practices is quarantine. During epizootics
and some zoonotic diseases, quarantine rules must be applied. A more restricted application of preventive
medicine practices is metaphylactic practices.