Use of rumination and activity monitoring for the identification of dairy cows with health disorders: Part II. Mastitis

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to evaluate (1) the performance of an automated health-monitoring system (AHMS) to identify cows with mastitis based on an alert system (health index score, HIS) that combines rumination time and physical activity; (2) the number of days between the first HIS alert and clinical diagnosis (CD) of mastitis by farm personnel; and (3) the daily rumination time, physical activity, and HIS patterns around CD. Holstein cows (n=1,121; 451 nulliparous and 670 multiparous) were fitted with a neck-mounted electronic rumination and activity monitoring tag (HR Tags, SCR Dairy, Netanya, Israel.) from at least -21 to 80 d in milk (DIM). Raw data collected in 2-h periods were summarized per 24 h as daily rumination and activity. An HIS (0 to 100 arbitrary units) was calculated daily for individual cows with an algorithm that used rumination and activity. A positive HIS outcome was defined as an HIS of <86 units during at least 1 d from -5 to 2 d after CD. Blood concentrations of nonesterified fatty acids, β-hydroxybutyrate, total calcium, and haptoglobin were also determined in a subgroup of cows (n=459) at -11±3, -4±3, 0, 3±1, 7±1, 14±1, and 28±1 DIM. The sensitivity of the HIS was 58% [95% confidence interval (CI): 49, 67] for all cases of clinical mastitis (n=123), and 55% (95% CI: 46, 64; n=114) and 89% (95% CI: 68, 100; n=9) for cases of mastitis alone or concurrent with other health disorders, respectively. Among clinical cases, sensitivity was 80.7% (95% CI: 67, 97) for cases caused by Escherichia coli (n=31) and ranged from 45 to 48% for cases caused by gram-positive bacteria (n=39; Streptococcus agalactiae, Streptococcus dysgalactiae, Streptococcus uberis, Streptococcus spp., Staphylococcus spp., and Trueperella pyogenes), Staphylococcus aureus (n=11), or cases with no bacterial growth (n=25). Days between the first HIS <86 and CD were -0.6 (95% CI: -1.1, -0.2) for all cases of mastitis. Cows diagnosed with mastitis had alterations of their rumination, activity, HIS patterns, and reduced milk production around CD depending on the type of mastitis case. Cows with mastitis also had some alterations of their calcium and haptoglobin concentrations around calving. The AHMS used in this study was effective for identifying cows with clinical cases of mastitis caused by E. coli and cows with another disease occurring during an event of mastitis, but it was less effective in identifying cows with mastitis not caused by E. coli.

Eating and rumination activities two weeks prepartum to one month postpartum in 100 healthy cows and cows with peripartum diseases

“…In the present study, cows with metritis had rumination activities similar to those in healthy cows. This is in contrast to the results of other reports, in which shorter rumination times were described in cows with metritis compared with healthy cows (Liboreiro et al, 2015;Stangaferro et al, 2015). Duration of rumination did not differ between cows with primary ketosis and healthy cows, whereas other authors reported reduced rumination activities in cows with subclinical ketosis and cows that subsequently developed clinical ketosis (Steensels et al, 2012;Liboreiro et al, 2015).…”

“…La durata dell'alimentazione era di 14 giorni fino al momento del parto con una diminuzione continua e quindi poi un costante incremento. Al contrario la durata della ruminazione prima e dopo il parto risultava simile e solo il giorno del parto dimiretained placenta remained lower than in healthy cows until day 25 postpartum, which was in agreement with other reports (Liboreiro et al, 2015;Stangaferro et al, 2015). In the present study, cows with metritis had rumination activities similar to those in healthy cows.…”

Use of rumination and activity monitoring for the identification of dairy cows with health disorders: Part III. Metritis

“…Because HIS is designed as an alert to identify cows for further clinical examination rather than to provide a definitive diagnosis of a health disorder, false-positive outcomes could not be assigned to a particular health disorder, because the reason for the alert was unknown. Therefore, we calculated Sp, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and accuracy as an overall test for all events recorded for the disorders of interest [metabolic and digestive (Stangaferro et al, 2016a), mastitis (Stangaferro et al, 2016b), and metritis (this paper)]. Because each day was considered a new test, the total contribution of individual cows to the number of cow-days was determined from 2 to 80 DIM.…”

Associations of postpartum lying time with culling, milk yield, cyclicity, and reproductive performance of lactating dairy cows

“…Haptoglobin is an acute phase protein produced in the liver that increases in the event of acute response of the immune system. In addition, postpartum cows that experience retained placenta (Pohl et al, 2015) or mastitis (Stangaferro et al, 2016b) have high serum haptoglobin concentrations during early lactation compared with healthy cows. Acute immune responses due to bacterial infections (e.g., E. coli) greatly increase glucose utilization by the immune system, thus resulting in decrease milk yield (Kvidera et al, 2017).…”