From operation to operation, dairy farmers across the nation perform the same duties to ensure their cows are adequately cared for. However, the methods for how those duties are performed may differ from farmer to farmer. The best way to learn alternative methods is through other dairy peers.

Pharmaceutical products (vaccines, antimicrobials, other injectable or oral drugs, fly control products, dewormers, intramammary tubes, teat dips, etc.) represent a large investment that helps decrease incidence of disease, mitigate the severity of disease, and improve animal health and productivity.

Before discussing subclinical hypocalcemia, it is helpful to review the more obvious disease of clinical hypocalcemia, or what everyone knows as milk fever. This disease can occur in mature dairy cows within three days after calving.

Over the last two decades, initially through improvements in feeding and nutrition and subsequently through facility design changes and enhanced management, we have seen positive progress in early lactation milk performance and health improvements in those farms that have chosen to embrace these changes. Much of the effort has been focused on the dry period – in particular, the pre-fresh or close-up period – and the maternity or calving area.

In response to industry and consumer calls for more judicious antibiotic use, additional research has gone into selective dry cow treatment (SDCT).

Postpartum disease and disorders may pose a threat to dairy cows, negatively affecting culling, lactation and reproductive performance. Approximately one-third of dairy cows have at least one clinical disease (e.g., metritis, mastitis, digestive issues and respiratory problems) during the first three weeks of lactation.