ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF Food-Animal Production Medicine & Herd Health: practice questions

1 · Performance records and KPIs: calving interval, SCC, ADG and FCR · hard

A sow herd has a 115-day gestation, 26-day lactation and 6-day wean-to-service interval, and weans 11.5 pigs per litter. What is the maximum pigs weaned per sow per year?

1. About 23.0
2. About 28.6
3. About 36.5
4. About 29.8

2 · Performance records and KPIs: calving interval, SCC, ADG and FCR · hard

A herd reports an average days open of 110 calculated only from cows that became pregnant. Why might this understate the herd's fertility problem?

1. Pregnant cows always have longer days open than open cows, so the bias works the other way
2. Days open always includes the dry period, which makes it larger, not smaller, than it should be
3. Days open is calculated from service dates, which are always recorded too late by staff
4. Cows that never conceived and were culled are excluded, so the worst performers leave the index

3 · Economics of herd health · hard

When should a herd health intervention be evaluated with net present value rather than a simple one-year partial budget?

1. When costs and benefits fall in different years, as in eradication or heifer rearing investments
2. When the intervention is required by law, since discounting applies only to legal measures
3. Only when the farm is making a loss, since profitable farms never need to discount future money
4. When the intervention costs less than a single visit and benefits arrive the same month

4 · Small-ruminant flock health · hard

In a temperate sheep flock, lambs aged 6–10 weeks develop sudden severe diarrhoea in late spring before faecal egg counts rise. Which parasite best explains this?

1. Nematodirus battus, after a mass hatch of larvae triggered by a cold spell then warmth
2. Fasciola hepatica, which causes acute diarrhoea in young lambs in late spring
3. Teladorsagia circumcincta, which hatches only once a year after the winter frost has passed
4. Haemonchus contortus, which causes profuse diarrhoea with high egg counts in lambs

5 · Mastitis control · hard

Why do chronic Staphylococcus aureus intramammary infections have poor cure rates during lactation?

1. It is a virus-like organism without any cell wall, so no antibiotic class can act on it
2. It lives only on teat skin, so intramammary drugs never reach it inside the quarter
3. The organism forms micro-abscesses and survives inside cells, protected from antimicrobials
4. It is always resistant to every antimicrobial licensed for intramammary use in cattle

6 · Lameness control · hard

A lameness intervention study compares herd prevalence before and after changing cubicle bedding. Why is regular mobility scoring of all cows better than counting treated cases?

1. Mobility scoring measures bedding comfort directly, which treatment records cannot record
2. Counting treated cases is illegal in most countries because of data protection law
3. Treatment records always overestimate true lameness prevalence, because every lame cow is recorded and treated twice
4. Treatment records depend on detection and treatment effort, so they shift with that effort even when true lameness does not