Prevalence of Oral, Pharyngeal and Respiratory Infection in Mycoplasma bovis Experimentally Infected Neonatal Calves

Abstract

Mycoplasma bovis is an important etiologic agent of neonatal calf disease such as pneumonia, arthritis, otitis media, and conjunctivitis. Oral colonization of calves with M. bovis may be an important risk factor in the development of these disease conditions. Many pharmaceuticals used to treat calfhood infectious disease are often ineffective against M. bovis, due to the unique physiologic characteristics of the pathogen. Establishing effective animal model systems to study the pathophysiology and treatment of mycoplasmosis is important. The objective of this study was to establish oral, pharyngeal, and respiratory system colonization of M. bovis in milk-fed calves using a virulent, outbreak, wild type strain in experimentally infected neonatal bull calves. We hypothesized pathogenic wild type strains of M. bovis would be more effective in establishing respiratory colonization than previous ATCC strains tested in our model system.