Intoxicações por Amorimia spp. E Callaeum psilophyllum em ruminantes.

Abstract

This thesis includes three papers on toxic plants that cause or are suspected of causing sudden death associated with exercise in domestic animals, poisoning characterized by a per acute course without significant morphological heart changes. The first chapter is a literature review, detailing recent changes that have occurred in the identification of different species of toxic Amorimia (formerly referred as Mascagnia) found in Brazil. We also report the epidemiology, toxicity, clinical signs, necropsy and histologic findings, diagnosis, and prevention and control of the poisoning by Amorimia spp. The second chapter reports the induction of resistance to poisoning by Amorimia septentrionalis by the repeated administration of non toxic doses, and also by transfaunation of ruminal contents from resistant to susceptible goats. In this study, we observed that animals receiving non-toxic doses and transfaunation of ruminal content were more resistant than goats that never ingested the plant. The third chapter is a short communication that evaluated experimentally the toxicity of Callaeum psilophyllum (synonym Mascagnia psilophylla) in rabbits and goats, as well as the possibility of the occurrence of poisoning by this plant in ruminants. It was demonstrated that, in rabbits, this plant causes similar clinical signs than those caused by plants causing sudden death; however, in goats, C. psilophyllum causes digestive signs, mainly diarrhea. There is no evidence that C. psilophyllum causes spontaneous poisoning in ruminants.