Calving is not a disease; it is a stage that needs to be managed and how that is done will impact a cow for her entire lactation. Best practices for transitioning a cow from far-off fresh to her lactation group has a host of areas that need focused attention by the entire management team on the dairy. 

The immune system is the body’s military. It is tasked with being able to recognize pathogenic invaders that have entered the body and eliminate them as quickly as possible.

Determining the infecting bacteria type allows for a more guided treatment decision. Not all producers can work with a veterinarian to culture milk samples, and results from on-farm culturing can be difficult to interpret. However, being able to at least categorize the infecting pathogen can provide valuable information.

Milk Urea Nitrogen or MUN is a way to see if a dairy farm’s feeding program is a success. A MUN screening test can be performed on a milk sample collected from a cow.

A productive cow isn’t always a profitable cow. A profitable cow performs in milk volume and quality, breeds back quickly and experiences few health events.

While most ectoparasites may take a break for the winter, it is important not to let your guard down because some parasites like mites and lice prefer the cooler time of the year.

Recently, Tom Wegner was named the recipient of the 2023 Boehringer Ingelheim Dairy First Award. “It was pretty cool for Rebecca Gotham, my BI rep, to recognize me, our farm and my employees for all the hard work we do,” Wegner says.

Cattle may have been domesticated for centuries now, but they remain prey animals and work to keep their secrets. Those masking skills were beneficial thousands of years ago, but they can create herd management challenges today.

What are cows doing if parasites are hanging around? Certainly not what they’re supposed to be doing. External parasites can affect a cow’s milk production immediately, because cows will spend their time scratching instead of eating or resting.

Though the HPAI outbreak of 2022-23 was devastating, an outbreak of FMD in the U.S. could be far worse, particularly for the dairy industry.