Assessment of drinking water and wastewater quality in dairy cattle farms and its adverse effects on host cell response in mice
Water is an essential medium for animal metabolism as well as an important cleaning medium and it must be maintained at certain quality to avoid adverse effects on the animals. According to the National Water Quality Standards, water source with a classification of Class III and less is deemed su...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/90939/1/FPV%202020%203%20IR.pdf http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/90939/ |
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| Summary: | Water is an essential medium for animal metabolism as well as an important cleaning
medium and it must be maintained at certain quality to avoid adverse effects on the
animals. According to the National Water Quality Standards, water source with a
classification of Class III and less is deemed suitable for animal consumption. The
chances for water quality to be substandard is as the possibility of farmers using water
from a questionable water source exists. Therefore, there is an urgent need to explore
the possible adverse effects in the livestock from drinking the substandard drinking
water. In our best knowledge, most cattle farms in Malaysia do not practice wastewater
treatment prior releasing it into water bodies such as drains, rivers and lakes and this
can lead to environmental pollution and adverse health effects to the fauna in the
immediate surrounding. In this study 7 cattle farms were selected and both drinking
water and wastewater samples were sampled for laboratory analysis. The water
samples were analysed in-situ and in the lab for 15 water quality parameters which are
dissolved oxygen, pH, salinity, electrical conductivity, turbidity, biological oxygen
demand, chemical oxygen demand, total suspended solid, total dissolved solid,
ammoniacal nitrogen, nitrate, phosphates, total coliform, iron and magnesium content.
The results were then compared with the National Water Quality Standards and the
overall classification for each water sample was decided. Then, the water classification
was further narrowed to three categories for the purpose of this study, namely, good
category (Class I and Class II), moderate category (Class III) and unsatisfactory
category (Class IV and Class V). The results for drinking water were as follows;
1(14.29%) Class II, 2 (28.57%) Class III, 2 (28.57%) Class IV and 2 (28.57%) Class
V. Meanwhile, all the wastewater samples in this study were categorized as Class V.
A total of 35 female mice were divided into 5 groups; Group 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 with 7
mice in each group. All the mice were gavage fed with 0.25 ml of water samples three
times daily for a period of 30 days. Group 1 was fed with sterile deionized distilled
water as the negative control, Group 2 was fed with the water sample from the good category, Group 3 was fed with the water sample from moderate category and Group
4 was fed with the water sample from unsatisfactory category. Meanwhile, Group 5
was fed with one of the wastewater samples. The mice were observed at regular
intervals and any mice that require humane end-points were euthanized and blood was
collected through cardiac puncture before post-mortem examination and preservation
of visceral organs and the brain. At the end of the 30 days, all surviving mice were
sacrificed and blood, visceral organs and the brain was preserved for serological and
histological examinations.
All treatment groups showed weight loss in comparison to the control group with the
group treated with the wastewater showed most significant weight loss (p<0.05). Mice
in groups 1, 2 and 3 did not show any significant clinical signs changes throughout the
experimental period. In this experiment, 57%(n=4) of the mice from group 4 exhibited
moderate emaciation and mild ruffled fur at the end of the experiment while all the
mice (n=7) from group 5 exhibited clinical signs of severe ruffled fur, dehydration and
severe emaciation and were euthanized to minimize pain. No significant gross lesions
were observed in mice from groups 1, 2 and 3. Only 57% (n=4) of the mice from group
4 showed signs of moderate dehydration while all the mice from group 5 showed signs
of severe dehydration. 28.5% (n=2) of the mice from group 2 and 14.2% (n=1) of the
mice from group 4 showed subcutaneous abcesses. Several coliform bacteria were
isolated and identified from the abcesses.
Only mice from Group 5 showed significant decrease (p<0.05) in the serum estrogen
levels in comparison to the control while no significant changes were observed in
treatment groups in comparison to the control group for the serum progesterone levels.
In terms serum Ig G concentrations, only the wastewater treatment group showed
significant elevation (p<0.05) in comparison to the control group. The treatment
groups 3, 4 and 5 showed significant elevation (p<0.05) in comparison to the control
group in serum Ig M concentrations. The treatment groups 4 and 5 showed significant
elevation (p<0.05) in serum Il-12 concentrations in comparison to the control group.
Groups 3 and 4 showed significant elevation (p<0.05) in serum Hp concentrations in
comparison to the control group while groups 3, 4 and 5 showed significant elevation
(p<0.05) in SAA concentrations in comparison to the control group.
Histopathological analysis revealed that both the kidneys and the livers from the mice
in group 3 showed moderate inflammation and degeneration cellular changes. Severe
inflammation and degeneration were observed in both the kidneys and livers in mice
from groups 4 and 5 while moderate inflammation were observed in uterus and ovaries
of mice from groups 4 and 5. At the same time, mild presence of inflammatory cells
and oedema was observed in groups 3, 4 and 5. In conclusion, this study had proven that the drinking water provided for cattle
consumption in most of the cattle farms are subpar as per the requirement set by the
National Water Quality Standards. At the same time, due to a lack of wastewater
treatment prior to its release to the environment, the quality of the wastewater is very
poor and can become a source of pollution especially in cases where the farm is located
nearby raw drinking water source areas. Based on the clinicopathological and
serological symptoms exhibited by the mice in the treatment groups fed different
qualities of drink water obtained from the dairy cattle farms, there is a high risk that
there would be a negative impact in terms of production, reproduction and health from
long term consumption of drinking water with subpar quality. Therefore, constant
evaluation is required to ensure that the drinking water provided to the cattle in the
dairy cattle farms are up to the standard for their consumption and the wastewater in
the farms should be treated and evaluated before being released to the environment to
avoid pollution. |
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