**5. Main pathologies**

*Animal Reproduction in Veterinary Medicine*

during the test fight [32].

ity of that character [45].

another, at the choice of the farm's owner.

task of avoiding mating between related animals.

quently, keep the best females as breeders [44].

by fans and not by the farmer, which is the case of *indulto*.

animal should be used for reproductive purpose or not.

the horse and with the muleta. There are different parameters (prompt response, attack, fixity, mobility, nobility, fierceness, aggressiveness, repetition, and so on) that are evaluated by the farmer, to achieve a final note for each animal and, subse-

In the test of males, animals of 2–4 years of age are chosen, initially selecting the specimens that have obtained the best results in the genealogical and morphological tests. They are tested in a small bullring, and if the animal does not respond properly, the test is interrupted, and the bull is withdrawn and will be destined for normal fighting. Those animals initially selected, after testing the behavior of their offspring, will become part of the livestock as a sire or will be discarded, losing their value for a standard fight since they have developed sense

There is another circumstantial and sporadic form of sire selection, performed

Currently, another type of selection, genetics, has been introduced by livestock associations, which has become increasingly important [9]. It consists of identifying the individuals carrying the most beneficial genes for the interest characters and using them as breeding animals to transmit them to their descendants. The way to evaluate whether or not the phenotype of an animal is a good reflection of the genes of which it is a carrier (genetic value or merit) is based on calculating the heritabil-

The capacity to transfer behavioral characters is very slow because it is limited by the production of a calf per year, at the most, as well as the complexity to accurately and quickly assess the ethological response of its products in the show [46]. According to Cañón et al. [2], many of the behavioral characters manifested by the Lidia bull, such as mobility, repetition, nobility, rhythm, and fierceness, despite its complexity and subjective assessments, if scored with enough rigor, can manifest high heritability (>0.35) that makes them susceptible to be selected in one way or

A very precise selection of the best individuals entails the maintenance of a population with high consanguinity; therefore, controlling it is an always necessary activity in a Lidia cattle ranch, preserving the necessary genetic variability within it. In general, in Lidia farms, the level of consanguinity does not seem to be very high: 0.12 and 0.13 [47]. Even so, it is possible to find bulls with a consanguinity coefficient of 0.25 [48]. However, regulated mating strategies should be followed, to avoid mating animals with common ancestors, establishing a short- or mediumterm conservation program. However, we must be aware of the difficulties involved in the conservation of some minority genetic lines, cattle ranches, or "*encastes*" [48], because the smaller a population is and the greater the imbalance between the sexes the more difficult it is to preserve their genetic characteristics, complicating the

Finally, the incorporation of the computer methods to control the productive data of the animals allows organization and best valuation of each reproductive potential. With the information reduced to informative schemes, the results can be checked immediately, which make it possible to know, through the corresponding analysis of the offspring, the racing power of the father or mother [45, 49–51].

<sup>3</sup> *indulto* = situation when a bull that has been excellent in the fight and is not sacrificed to be incorpo-

of a bullfight where many influential factors could alter the true criteria by which a bull must be selected. Therefore, it is the breeder who will decide, later, if the

3

It occurs in the context

**118**

rated into his home field as a stud.

The most frequent diseases of Lidia cattle, which also affect extensive cattle, are parasitic processes (coccidiosis, ostertagiosis, dictyocaulosis, and sarcosporidiosis), infectious processes (clostridiosis, anthrax, paratuberculosis, tuberculosis, actinomycosis, actinobacillosis, and pyobacillosis), poisonings (aflatoxicosis, ochratoxicosis, aluminum phosphide, and lead poisoning), and deficiency processes as poliencefalomalacia [52].

In addition, the extensive nature of this animal production system predisposes him to suffer from eye problems such as infectious keratoconjunctivitis and horn wounds due to fights between animals [53]. The latter represents a very important chapter in the economies of Lidia farming assuming losses of traumatic etiology ranging from 3 to 15% of male adult individual. Most of them require surgical treatment; some of the interventions are simple, and others are more complicated, but all have in common the septic character of the traumatic focus [54].

The gorings have an etiology closely related to the age of the bulls, strength, and *encaste*, with an increase in frequency of incidence in 4-year-old bulls with a weight of 500 kg, and the wounds occur with a greater probability in the head and extremity regions. They are caused by external violence in which the surface of the traumatic agent is wide. We can find open or closed wounds. The closed wounds, even when not seen to affect external skin tissues, can cause internal muscular or vascular lesions. Hematomas or serous effusions (blood and lymphatic exudates) of difficult reabsorption due to their large size appear, and they require intervention. They evolve to contamination and abscess formation [55].

The treatment of all types of wounds should be focused on controlling, primarily, the bleeding, either by suturing damaged vessels or by hemostatic parenteral treatments, then preventing or controlling the infection, disinfecting and cleaning the affected area, and finally achieving the rapid healing, usually by second attempt, and is always suggested to leave a drain at the trauma point even if it is small [56].

Another pathology that has been observed with a high incidence in the Lidia breed is osteochondrosis [57]. It is a degenerative process of the joint surfaces, widely described in horses and in bait cattle of other breeds, with few studies in fighting bulls to know if it could influence the mobility of the animal during the show [27].
