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Vets have always been in the vanguard and served as the front lines for the detection and reporting of foreign animal diseases. We have been exceedingly fortunate in the U.S. to have not experienced a recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, for example.
It is unrealistic to envision that this status will continue indefinitely. Should an outbreak of foot-and-mouth or any other foreign animal disease occur, it will be your vet who is trained to make the initial diagnosis and take steps to immediately contain a potentially catastrophic disease outbreak.
Herd health is the result of multiple, interconnected factors. Nutrition, herd health protocols and vaccination programs often come to mind when looking for ways to improve health through all stages of an animal’s life cycle. While all are proven to make a difference, one often overlooked yet essential area of focus is your facilities.
Dairies that have mastered the art of the transition period have a handful of things in common – and surprisingly, good nutrition is not the only one.
Dr. Ken Nordlund from the University of Wisconsin – Madison shared his top five findings for transition cow success during the Minnesota Dairy Health Conference held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, May 20-22.
Managing mastitis begins with controlling the factors that make infection more probable. Cleanliness in both the barn and the milking parlor, and proper maintenance and use of milking equipment, are all factors that make infection less likely to occur. Overall cow health also plays a major role in decreasing the likelihood, or the severity, of infection.
“Mastitis is the result of a bacterial infection in the mammary gland when it is weakened or overwhelmed,” Robert J. Van Saun, Penn State Extension veterinarian, said, addressing participants in the recent Penn State Mastitis and Milk Quality Conference.
Trace mineral nutrition and its application in dairy rations continues to receive significant attention through research and its implementation in the field.
Our nutrient requirement systems, such as the Dairy NRC, work well at predicting requirements for energy, metabolizable protein and other nutrients needed in comparatively larger quantities to support maintenance, growth, pregnancy and lactation in dairy cattle.
Feeding controlled-energy diets prior to calving can help increase feed efficiency and profitability, said Dr. Phil Cardoso, assistant professor, dairy researcher and extension at the University of Illinois.
Cardoso was one of the presenters at the Four-State Dairy Nutrition and Management Conference held June 11 and 12 in Dubuque, Iowa.
As he tills and cultivates fields for his annual crop rotations, Richard Kratz also sows the seeds of innovation. It took four years to perfect his blend of peas and oats, but he is now literally reaping the benefits from Kratz Farm’s 2,000 acres. And, like pollen carried on the breeze, word of the breakthrough is spreading.
Silage avalanches are real, and there is no way to predict when and where they will occur. It only takes a fraction of a second for part of a silage feedout face to silently break off and fall, and the result can be deadly for anyone beneath it.
Recently, there have been numerous avalanche fatalities, including an 11-year-old boy in New Hampshire, a 19-year-old young man in New York, a 30-year-old truck driver in Idaho and a 63-year-old employee in Pennsylvania.
On-farm sieving tests on dry and high-moisture corn provide dairy producers and nutritionists with helpful feed management suggestions for dairy rations.
Particle-size assessments, like a grain sieve, provide information on the availability of starch for digestion by rumen microbial populations and intestinal enzymes. Knowing the “relative corn index” (RCI) score of corn can allow you to capture the greatest possible profit and optimize rumen health.
If you Google “five ways to,” you get a laundry list of how-to articles – five ways to channel your inner millionaire (it’s a joke, right?), five ways to kick the cable TV habit (does 26 hours a day constitute a habit?), five ways to do nothing and become more productive (sign me up), five ways to remove stripped screws (although it doesn’t list a burn pile, which works pretty well).
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