Mortality in commercial nurseries can be due to various causes. Clostridium perfringens Type A, a normal inhabitant of the intestinal microflora, is recognized as a cause of neonatal enteritis, but is less well known as a cause of mortality in nurserypigs. Olubunmi and Taylor isolated C. perfringens Type A from the intestines of 12 suckling piglets and 11 weaned and adult pigs, some of which had died of profuse diarrhea. Jestin et al. described a diarrheic syndrome with high morbidity and low mortality attributed to C. perfringens enterotoxin in feeder pigs. Until now, Clostridium perfringens Type A had not been identified as a cause of sudden death, in the absence of prior clinical signs, in nursery pigs. The purpose of this paper is to present acase history of sudden deaths attributed to Clostridium perfringens Type A in a commercial nursery.
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