Bovine brucellosis causes abortion and reproductive failure in cattle herds, with welfare implications from the disease itself and the testing and slaughter programs used for eradication.
Brucellosis causes significant welfare harm through abortion. Infection causes the dam to abort fetuses at various stages of pregnancy, causing physical and potentially psychological trauma associated with the loss of the pregnancy. Multiple animals aborting simultaneously in naive herds creates a welfare crisis affecting multiple animals. The public health significance of the disease means that reactor animals are compulsorily slaughtered, creating welfare events associated with the removal and slaughter process. The loss of unborn calves in brucellosis-affected herds represents significant welfare harm to animals that have no welfare independent of the pregnancy but whose death causes measurable distress to the dam.