Field disease investigation-A differentiating and integrative approach to problems in animal populations

The economically important diseases of agricultural animals are those that affect groups of animals to result in impaired productivity or mortality. Herd and flock disease result from complex interactions between inciting agents (or other etiologies), and factors such as management systems, nutrition, environment and other contributory causes. For these reasons herd and flock disease problems must be addressed, researched, and taught, in the areas where they occur-on the farm and in the field. For political and educational reasons this needs to be on farms throughout the state or region represented by a veterinary school. Like most studies, this type of study needs to have a multidisciplinary input but these inputs often involve disciplines that are different from those that address clinical disease in individual animals in the veterinary teaching hospital setting. Clinical departments in veterinary schools have not traditionally found funds to support this approach to agricultural animal disease. This talk will discuss the establishment of a conjoint program between the College of Veterinary Medicine and the College of Agriculture at Washington State University (Field Disease Investigation Unit) to address these requirements and its activities over the past 25 years.