How to prevent and treat white nose disease in raccoon dog farming

“White nose” disease - before this, probably none of you had ever heard of it. If you go home and look through books or search for information online, there is no such thing as “white nose disease” either. But after listening to my explanation, when you go home and look through the books you have, you will all be able to find some of the symptoms of “white nose disease”.

What is white nose disease“White nose disease” was most typical in Northeast China starting from 2001. At the beginning, folks in Northeast China noticed that the tips of the noses of the foxes, mink and raccoon dogs they raised gradually developed red spots from being black, then the area gradually expanded, and afterwards white spots appeared, and finally the tips of the noses all turned white one by one. Then they also noticed that the claws gradually grew longer and turned white; the paw pads also turned white and thickened. At first they thought, so what if the nose tip, claws and paw pads turn white - it does not affect selling the fur anyway. But later they found that in the animals whose nose tips, claws and paw pads had turned white, some gradually shrank in growth, and some gradually lost hair and shed dander on the forearms of the front legs, and in the end had great difficulty supporting their bodies; when kept for breeding, it was found that the survival rate of the offspring was very low and their production performance was very poor. Thus, “white nose disease” gradually spread by word of mouth. “White nose disease” is only a nickname. Because it was discovered only a relatively short time ago, we are all still continuously researching it, and the real “proper name” of this disease has not yet been determined, so I have no choice but to also call it “white nose” disease.

The causes of white nose diseaseAfter this disease occurred, we did not know at the time what it was either; we treated it as a bacterial disease, and the effect was poor; we treated it as a parasitic disease, and the effect was still poor. Finally, taking into account the actual feed usage in production, we looked for a way to treat it from the perspective of nutrition, and achieved fairly good results. Therefore, we preliminarily determined that this disease is caused by the long-term imbalance of the feed with which we raise fur-bearing animals. On the basis of long-term observations of the therapeutic effect from the end of 2001 to 2003, treating it according to this line of thinking showed that the effect was very good. This also verified that our judgment was correct. This disease has now been made a research project, and a formal research procedure has been launched. I believe that in the near future the truth of the matter will quickly surface. Based on experience in actual production, the current problems in production should still be solved from the perspective of nutritional balance. Research so far has found that “white nose” disease is in fact mainly a comprehensive nutritional metabolic disorder disease caused by an imbalance in nutritional metabolism, mainly caused by the deficiency or unbalanced proportions of various vitamins, minerals and amino acids in production.

Clinical manifestations of white nose diseaseIn production, “white nose” disease has the following several visible manifestations: the nose turns white: the nose gradually develops red spots from black or brown -- red patches -- white spots -- white patches; B. the paw pads turn white, thicken, crack and become painful, and in some there is also ulceration; C. the claws are long and turn white: in some cases individual claws are very long, in some cases one of the claws turns white, and in some cases    all the claws turn white; D. there is also a very special manifestation -- dry claws, which some folks call “dry claw disease”. The claws become dry, with no flesh; the color is very dark, appearing deep red or dark red; large amounts of dander are produced and continuously shed; standing upright is difficult.

Manifestations of “white nose” disease in reproduction

Missed mating caused by a large proportion of unobvious estrus: especially in foxes and raccoon dogs, which come into estrus only once a year; when they should have been in estrus, we never saw obvious symptoms of estrus, and even after the estrus period had passed there was still no obvious estrus. Missed mating is caused by this situation, and the proportion of such cases is relatively large. B. Embryos are absorbed and calcified: mating was successful, and the belly of the female animal could be seen growing bigger day by day. However, after a period of time, it was found that the belly stopped growing larger and gradually shrank, and in the end the embryos were absorbed and calcified. C. A large proportion of miscarriages and stillbirths: there are many causes of miscarriage and stillbirth, and “white nose” disease can also cause a large proportion of miscarriages and stillbirths. D. Abnormal births: the newborn pups are red-and-white or pink-and-white, but they begin to die one after another starting two or three days after birth, and generally by more than 20 days after birth they have gradually all died. Even the very few that survive are very small in size and appear rickets-like. This year, if we encounter this situation again, we should deal with it early. In production, “white nose” disease also has a very special manifestation: none of the previous symptoms are present, and the initial growth situation is also very good, but after growing to a certain extent (generally before the winter fur growth period in the later stage of growth and development), it does not continue to grow larger but instead grows smaller, that is, the situation of growth shrinking back. In Guhe, a fellow villager told me that his raccoon dog had originally weighed 23 jin, and when I went there it weighed only 3 jin. In Jianggezhuang, in November, I also saw large numbers of raccoon dogs only about 7 or 8 jin in size.

Some farmers asked me: “Why was there no white nose disease when our feed was worse before, but now that the feed is better there is still this disease?” The reason is this. What we call the quality of the feed refers only to the protein in the feed, while the amounts of other various vitamins, minerals and amino acids did not increase along with the increase in the amount of protein. The more eggs and fishmeal you add, the better you think the feed is; on the contrary, the less eggs and fishmeal you add, the worse you think the feed is. When the protein in the original feed was low, the proportions of the various nutritional components were still somewhat more appropriate, but now, because the protein supply has been increased, this relative balance has been further disrupted, just like the calcium-to-phosphorus ratio I mentioned earlier - the calcium was already high, and calcium was still being supplemented, so the more it was supplemented the more paralyzed it became, for the same reason.

White nose disease is in fact still relatively common in farming, and sometimes it is easily overlooked by farmers. In the farming process, prevention and treatment of diseases are both very necessary, and this is also the best method for increasing yield and controlling costs.