The numbers don’t lie – mastitis infections in dairy herds are one of the most financially detrimental occurrences that a producer can face. With an estimated $2 billion in losses each year in the U.S. and $400 million in Canada, more preventative and sustainable measures to alleviate mastitis infections are sorely needed.

Everyone is aware that cows with mastitis give less milk, but we usually only consider the milk loss of clinical cows and tend to overlook the losses due to subclinical cases.

What is the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD)? A change to the guidelines by the FDA regarding antibiotics for food animals in feed or water took effect in January 2017.

If you raise cattle, you likely know about and have dealt with dystocia or calving difficulty. How dystocia is scored and assessed can prove quite variable.

Achieving an appropriate calcium balance in dairy cows is critical near calving, but not only to ensure a healthy transition to lactation. According to a new study from the University of Illinois, calcium added to acidified prepartum diets can improve a whole suite of postpartum outcomes, including lower rates of uterine infection and quicker return to ovulation.

Knowing what is really going on with the health of your transition cows is not just important – “It is critical to overall profitability and production. The financial impact of transition cow disease is greater than we realize,” said Dr. Mike Overton.

Making dry-cow management a priority sets cows up for a successful next lactation. Since mastitis is the most common clinical disease reported on U.S. dairy farms, and one of the top reasons cows are sold, it’s critical to maintain a high level of care throughout the dry period.

Hypocalcemia impacts cows on all types of dairies. Historically, dairy producers have focused on clinical hypocalcemia, often called milk fever, because without treatment these cows don’t recover.

The benefits of a healthy transition period are more than simply the convenience of not having to deal with cases of ketosis or twisted stomachs.

Three dairymen who installed rumination and activity monitoring systems over five years ago share their experiences and advice from the East, Midwest and West regions.