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Does vaccination equal immunization? How do animals develop immunity? What challenges do animals encounter when trying to develop adequate immune response?
These questions come up occasionally as dairy producers are working with their herd veterinarian to develop a herd health protocol. Let’s start by going over some immunology basics. Vaccination does not equal immunization.
“For years and years, we’ve all known the very best thing for a sick cow is to receive healthy rumen fluid,” says Bernie Mulder, founder of Drench-Mate.
Yet, until now, there hasn’t been an easy way to obtain that fluid.
Johne's disease (pronounced yo-KNEES) is a condition of cattle and all other ruminants (both domestic and wild) that causes chronic diarrhea, weight loss, infertility, and eventual death in animals that are infected years earlier.
During the Spring quarter at UC – Davis, our dairy cattle production class of 40 students was on the road again doing weekly field trips to 10 dairy farms. We traveled all of California, as far north as Orland and as far south as Hilmar.
The objectives were to meet with producers and talk about management practices and issues facing the industry, to meet with professionals in the field (nutritionists and veterinarians) and to look at facilities and animals.
The differences between environmental and contagious mastitis are now largely understood among researchers and dairy producers alike.
But it took a great many studies over a number of years to make that distinction.
One project in particular that helped to point out the need for new mastitis control methods was developed in the 1960s by The National Institute for Research in Dairying in Britain in cooperation with Cornell University.
As I visit dairy farms across Pennsylvania in my role as a Penn State Dairy Extension Team member, two dairy cow health-related problems persist on many of the farms – lameness and delayed pregnancies due to various reproductive issues.
According to an extension article updated on January 27, 2011, studies completed in the state of New York have shown lameness to cost $90 per cow per year on average.
This article was #16 of the Top 25 most well-read articles on www.progressivedairy.com in 2012. to jump to the article. It was published in the July 20, 2012 Extra. Click here for the full list of the Top 25.
Our staff is discovering that our online readers like straightforward, brief articles like this piece by Arm & Hammer Animal Nutrition’s Dr. Joel Pankowski. He says stepping up nutrition, monitoring transition cows and keeping good records are three keys to minimizing uterine health disorders.
According to a 2007 survey conducted by the USDA’s National Animal Health Monitoring System, someone other than a veterinarian performed approximately one-third of pregnancy exams on dairies in the West, and approximately one-quarter of exams on dairies with more than 500 cows nationally.
With these survey results in mind, veterinarian Kevin McSweeney of Loveland, Colorado, began laying out the groundwork for a program to help train individuals in becoming ultrasound technicians.
Editor’s note: This is the second of a three-part series. Click here to read the first article.
I wrote in the first part of this series that it is important for the dairyman to first find out what he’s fighting and then work with the herd veterinarian on the treatment.
By knowing what is causing the mastitis on their farm, the dairyman and their herd veterinarian are able to use the appropriate antimicrobial drugs.
Armed with this knowledge, they may see a decrease in the total treatment duration or a reduction in the use of unnecessary broad-spectrum antimicrobials.
In the field of post-mortem examination, experienced pathologists develop a sixth sense. I encountered that sixth sense while a first-year resident at Cornell University, in the middle of a winter morning.
At 11 a.m. our lab received a phone call letting us know about seven dead heifers from a farm in upstate New York.
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