Association of days in close up, gestation length, and rumination around time of calving with disease and pregnancy outcomes in multiparous dairy cows

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of rumination times and days spent in a close-up group before calving (DCU) on early-lactation health and reproductive outcomes in dairy cows. Data were gathered for 719 cows located in a single herd. Herd management and reproductive records were analyzed for cows receiving treatment in the first 30 d of lactation (days in milk; DIM) for clinical mastitis, reproductive tract disease, ketosis, milk fever, and displaced abomasum. Rumination times for each cow were downloaded daily from the herd's automated collar system used to generate heat and health alerts for each cow beginning at 21 d precalving until 14 d postcalving. During the first 30 DIM, 121 cows (18%) developed at least 1 diseaseany combination of ketosis (40 cows, 5.9% of total), mastitis (17 cows, 2.5%), metritis (75 cows, 11%), milk fever (17 cows, 2.5%), or displaced abomasum (28 cows, 4.1%); 305 cows (45%) were pregnant again at 100 DIM, and an additional 139 cows (20%) were pregnant at 150 DIM. Principal component analysis was used to determine the relationship between gestation length and DCU and their association with the odds of developing disease in early lactation. We did not find any significant association between precalving rumination time and disease within the first 30 DIM. Higher rumination time in the week before calving was shown to be strongly linked to a shorter time to subsequent pregnancy, whereas rumination times postcalving were not associated with changes in the time to pregnancy. Principal component analysis showed that a curvilinear combination of gestation length and DCU (principal component 1) was significantly associated with changes in disease incidence in the first 30 DIM. Gestation length and time spent in close up are important man-agement factors in reducing the incidence of disease in early lactation, and rumination times around calving may help predict future reproductive outcomes.

Evaluation of an indwelling bolus equipped with a triaxial accelerometer for the characterisation of the diurnal pattern of bovine reticuloruminal contractions

“…The value of neck collar-mounted accelerometers has been demonstrated for the detection of changes in rate of rumination over time. Variation in rumination rate from accelerometers has been used to diagnose disease in cattle (Cook et al ., 2021). Our data show similar performance from an indwelling bolus, using the commercially available data.…”

Nutrition, rumination and heat stress as influential factors in dairy cows production: A review

“…Nutrition is a very important factor influencing the rumination process (Paudyal, 2021;Ning et al, 2022). Term nutrition is specific with the includes aspects such the quantity fed for the animals, the composition of the ration, equally important is the structure of the ration and another very important factor is the frequency of feeding (Beauchemin, 2018;Cook et al, 2021;Ning et al, 2022), while Cocco (2021) adds that it also depends on the health status of the dairy cows and also on the climatic factors. Šimko et al (2013) report that mixing time in the feed batch mixer is also an important factor affecting ration structure, which should not be in the positive or negative values.…”

Symposium review: Use of multiple biological, management, and performance data for the design of targeted reproductive management strategies for dairy cows

“…Understanding and characterizing associations from these early predictors would enable decisionmaking sometime before cows become eligible for pregnancy. For example, a recent study demonstrated an association between rumination time in the week before calving and pregnancy risk (Cook et al, 2021). As the weekly average for rumination time 1 wk before calving increased by 15 min, the risk of pregnancy increased by 4% (95% CI: 1-7%).…”