Monitoring Health and Looking for Sick Cows

Abstract

A major goal for transition cow management is to keep a dairy cow healthy during early postpartum (the fi rst 3 weeks after calving). Monitoring postpartum health involves the examination of cows in early postpartum by trained farm personnel using health parameters to identify sick cows and provide treatment. Veterinarians have an opportunity to expand their services to dairy producers by implementing training programs for farm employees to look for sick cows using time -effective techniques to identify animals in the early stages of disease and allow for routine treatment.

Evaluation of blood metabolites in dairy cows grazing under two pasture allowances and supplemented with corn silage under restricted grazing conditions

“…These diseases occur due to imbalances between income, biotransformation, and output of metabolites, generating pathophysiological changes (Allen and Piantoni, 2013;Esposito et al, 2014). Unfortunately, most of these diseases are difficult to detect and can limit persistently the production of animals, generating a decline in the profitability of dairy farms (Kossaibati and Esslemont, 1997;Contreras, 1998;Risco and Benzaquen, 2011).…”

Body temperature in early postpartum dairy cows

“…As surveyed in Germany, 89% of large dairy farms (!200 cows) checked fresh cows once or twice daily, whereas only 59% of small dairy farms (<100 cows) checked fresh cows with the same frequency [2]. Within these fresh cow protocols, various parameters (e.g., rectal temperature (RT), attitude, milk production, uterine discharge, ketones) are evaluated during the first 5 to 14 days in milk (DIMs) to diagnose relevant diseases (e.g., metritis, ketosis, displaced abomasum, mastitis) and provide treatment [3]. These authors postulated that the combination of the parameters stated above has to be considered when making a decision whether or not a cow is sick and requires treatment.…”

Developing an Animal Welfare Assessment Protocol for Cows in Extensive Beef Cow-Calf Systems in New Zealand. Part 2: Categorisation and Scoring of Welfare Assessment Measures

“…The limitation of health checks on extensive systems is that it is an overall inspection of cows at pasture, with rare close inspection to detect early health problems and injuries [ 47 ]. Thus, just recording health checks, without consideration of what health checks entailed while looking at individual cows versus the whole herd might influence the findings and hence categorisation of this measure [ 48 ].…”