Bovine brucellosis is a bacterial disease causing reproductive failure in cattle with serious welfare consequences for affected animals, and zoonotic risk for farm workers and vets.
Brucellosis causes profound welfare impacts: aborting cows experience physical distress and potential reproductive tract infections, retained placentas lead to metritis, and infected bulls suffer orchitis. The anxiety and confusion of failed pregnancies may also cause welfare harm. Eradication programmes, while involving culling of infected animals, protect the broader population from ongoing cycles of reproductive loss and associated suffering.