One positive test can undo years of trust and confidence built with both industry partners and consumers. Residues remain a daily concern on every dairy farm, calf ranch and dairy business because of their direct effect on our ability to produce safe, wholesome dairy products for consumers. A few basic residue prevention principles can increase residue awareness and provide simple solutions for responsible animal health product storage, use and management.

Researchers from Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin recently published results from a field trial looking at the effects of propylene glycol on milk yield and resolution of ketosis in fresh cows diagnosed with subclinical ketosis in the Journal of Dairy Science.

As many veterinarians, nutritionists, farmers and students would agree, management during the transition period is one of the most crucial roles to produce a successful lactation. Making your transition cow program a success relies heavily upon proper body condition score at calving, minimizing pre-calving energy intake and maximizing feed intake throughout the freshening period. Although special attention is commonly given to transition cows, heifers calving for the first time are often not seen as high-risk animals. This may be due to the fact that heifers often suffer from lower rates of milk fever, or displaced abomasum during the fresh period, when compared to animals in their second or third lactation.

Metritis is a common and costly disease that affects dairy cows during the early postpartum period. Researchers at the University of British Columbia’s Dairy Center have completed a number of studies investigating the relationships between health and behavior (behaviour) of cows during the transition period and have found that both feeding behavior (behaviour) and dry matter intake (DMI) can be used in the early detection of disease.

As a full-time trimmer since September 1973, I believed the popular theory in the school of trimming in which we did not block nor wrap – but rather we trimmed so we did not have to block or wrap. I did not get serious about either blocking or wrapping until the second Hoof Trimmers’ Conference in Batavia, New York, in 1997. By then I’d been trimming for 24 years. It was also my introduction to hoof anatomy and hoof mechanics. I bought a kit from Hoof-it and went back to trimming without blocking or wrapping. My greatest problem, besides knowing how to wrap or block, was knowing when to wrap or block.

As a follow-up to his popular article, "Individual cow care to lower lameness in your herd," we asked author Jamie Sullivan the following question: Q. Have lameness incidents continued to decline or have they remained about the same? What's the next step in hoof health beyond a focus on individual cow care? In this herd and my other clients' herds that have adopted the “individual cow care and 150-day trim protocol," we have seen continued improvement in hoof health. Does that mean we don’t have some months where there is an increase in lameness? No.

Dairy cows are often grouped according to age, days in milk, feed requirements and health status. To create these groupings, cows are often moved to new groups four or more times per lactation. At each regrouping, cows are mixed with unfamiliar herdmates, resulting in changes in group composition and dynamics.