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In her latest video blog on the Proud to Dairy network, Barbara Martin describes a displaced abomasum procedure being performed by veterinarian Alvaro Magalhaes. (Warning: video contains graphic images.)
Alvaro answers questions and explains the importance of the procedure.
Of all the important areas to monitor on a dairy, management of the entire transition period (3 weeks pre- and 3 weeks post-freshening) can have a huge impact on lactation performance and profit per cow. Transition periods that are not optimized pose increased risk of postpartum metabolic and immune- related diseases, early culling and poor reproductive results, all having a potentially significant negative economic impact on your herd.
Optimizing the health of postpartum cows is critical to every dairy herd to ensure both production and reproduction goals are met. During the past several years, producers and industry experts have adopted several useful benchmarks to evaluate postpartum health (see Table 1), and as expected, many managers have effectively reached or exceeded them.
If you’re in the dairy business, you’ve no doubt seen the grim results of an acute case of coliform mastitis. The fever; hot, painful udder swelling; grossly abnormal milk; lack of appetite; and shock-like symptoms are difficult to watch and even harder to forget. Often, severe cases like this lead to loss of a quarter, at best; and loss of the animal, at worst.
We tend to think of these sporadic cases as the only instances in which we deal with coliform mastitis. But, in fact, about half of all clinical cases are caused by noncontagious environmental organisms, including E. coli, Klebsiella and Enterobacter, which fall together under the umbrella of coliform or gram-negative mastitis.
For decades we have been sending sick or special-needs cows to the hospital pen, assuming this is a safe place for them. But how much of this is true? Are we actually helping these animals or making their life worse and riskier? How is this long dairy recession affecting the health of our animals?
I will share my experience about the actual situation for hundreds of different herds in the U.S. It will show you how with little or no money at all, common sense and employee training in basic equipment maintenance and sanitation, you can make the hospital pen a healthier place for your cows to be.
It’s a recurring nightmare. Dairy producers shocking their CIP system in hopes to get it clean. Too many times we hear about the gory details, instead of a happy ending.
Such is the case with a Wisconsin farmer milking almost 900 cows, three times a day. He was shocking his system every Saturday, hoping to reduce bacteria counts. In order to shock the system with an alkaline/chlorine base product, this producer pinched off the hose leading to the acid base product, because the two products are not compatible.
There’s an old saying in horse racing circles. “No hoof, no horse.” It refers to the simple truth that even the fastest, strongest and most well-bred colt can’t run if he’s not sound.
Dairy cows aren’t runners or even particularly athletic, but the same phrase could easily be modified to “No foot, no cow” to describe the impact lameness has on dairy cattle performance. Although that wouldn’t be completely accurate because lameness can hobble bulls too, adding them to the list of “physically unable to perform” animals.
In developing individual farm mastitis control and treatment strategies, it is often necessary to characterize the types of bacteria that are present on your farm. To answer this question, a microbiological analysis, or milk culture, must be performed on milk samples collected from cows showing clinical or subclinical signs of mastitis. Results of the milk cultures will help identify which bacteria are causing the mastitis.
In turn, this information can be used to alter mastitis control, prevention, and treatment options to fit your herd’s conditions. During an investigation of a herd dealing with high somatic cell counts or a high incidence of clinical mastitis, milk culture results provide essential evidence for solving the problem.
As a veterinarian who is passionate about animal health and producing high-quality dairy foods, I am embarrassed as I watch the EU force us (the U.S. dairy industry) to produce milk with an SCC below 400,000. Why haven’t we chosen to establish this SCC level on our own? I know the arguments. Our PMO is focused on food safety, not quality and shelf life issues, and there is no research to date that connects a cell count up to 750,000 with any increased disease risk from human consumption. The problem is today’s consumer views food safety and quality as synonymous – and we need to have the same view.
Ironically this SCC reduction mandate is in direct conflict with a major paradigm shift that is currently underway in the U.S dairy industry. What is the paradigm shift? We appear determined to replace the “gold standard” for dairy cow bedding of new, washed, dry sand with something else. I use the term alternative bedding systems to describe everything other than deep-bedded, dry, washed, virgin sand in well-designed freestalls that keep cows comfortable and clean. Dr. Andy Johnson puts it this way, “Once you walk away from the gold standard, you choose your own poison for milk quality problems.”
Many dairy producers rely on footbath programs to help prevent and control infectious claw lesions in their herd. Maximizing the effectiveness of a footbath program hinges on several key factors, including proper footbath design and effective footbath management techniques.
“When used correctly, footbath programs can be a highly successful way for dairies to help prevent and control the spread of infectious lesions such as digital dermatitis, interdigital dermatitis and foot rot,” says Dr. Dana Tomlinson, Research Nutritionist, Zinpro Corporation. “However, a poorly managed footbath program can actually cause more harm than good.”
Known as one of the largest health problems on United States dairies, lameness costs producers thousands of dollars each year through veterinary bills, higher culling rates, lost milk production and a decline in reproductive performance. While lameness is not often tied directly to reproductive failure, research continues to show that sore feet are closely tied to breeding pen performance.
Lameness 101: Hoof anatomy It’s nearly impossible to understand why the dairy cow’s hoof responds to stress in the ways it does without understanding its structure, which is illustrated in Figure 1.
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