Side of chute does not affect the sensitivity of Tritrichomonas foetus sample collection in bulls when using dominant hand for collection

Abstract

Tritrichomonas foetus, a sexually transmitted disease in cattle, continues to plague the cattle industry despite years of control programs. One reason for this continued prevalence through­out the U.S. and the world is that accurate diagnosis is compli­cated in the fact that retrieval of organisms for diagnosis and subsequent testing may be compromised by multiple factors in­cluding, but not limited to, how samples are collected.

 A commonly used sampling technique for diagnosing T. foetus in bulls is scraping of the preputial and penile mucosa with ei­ther an artificial insemination pipette or specially designed T. foetus testing device such as the Pizzle Stick Trich Testing De­vice (Lane Manufacturing Denver, CO). Parker et al. noted that right-hand dominant practitioners were more commonly suc­cessful in retrieving T. foetus in known positive bulls when col­lecting from the right side of the bull compared to the left; how­ever, the opposite was not investigated for left-hand dominant practitioners and only cultures were used to declare whether a sample was positive or not. The objective of this study was to determine if using current RT-qPCR testing if there is a differ­ence in rate of positive tests pending side of chute and use of dominant hand for testing.