Dairy cows are most susceptible to infectious diseases, such as mastitis and metritis, during early lactation. All animals on a dairy are being exposed to micro-organisms every day; however, most of them do not become clinically diseased.

Blanket dry cow therapy, the intramammary treatment of all quarters of all cows in the herd with a long-acting antibiotic formulation at dry-off, is one of the practices recommended by the National Mastitis Council for mastitis control.

If you are a football fan, you know that a successful year on the gridiron starts with summer training camp. Conditioning your star players and preparing them to hold up for a long season is a must in order to make it to the Super Bowl.

We’ve heard a lot of buzz over the last couple years about subclinical ketosis in fresh cows, different methods for testing and how subclinical ketosis affects cows. In the spring of 2012, we started an on-farm survey to determine the level of subclinical ketosis present in several Upper Midwest herds using Abbott’s Precision Xtra blood meter.

Rumen acidosis results from an excessive acid load in the rumen not neutralized by salivary or feed buffers. Changes in physiology, metabolism and behavior of heat-stressed cows increase their susceptibility to both subacute (SARA) and acute acidosis.

As combines start to cruise through this year’s harvest, simple management routines can often be overlooked on the dairy. One of these practices is providing a consistent milk routine for the herd.

Providing a comfortable, dry resting surface for lactating cows always may serve as the single-most critical success factor for managing a compost bedded pack barn, according to findings from a University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Cooperative Extensive Service study, “Compost Bedded Pack Barn Design Features and Management Considerations,” co-authored by Jeffrey Bewley, UK Animal and Food Sciences, Joe Taraba, Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, and colleagues.

As summer comes to an end, we must remember to keep our cool when it comes to heat abatement for our dairy herds. We may be enjoying some cooler weather, but for our high-producing dairy cows, the temperature is still running plenty warm for peak production.