Herd Health

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.

Lameness is simply defined as “a symptom of pain.” Lameness is the third-most common reason for culling cows, after infertility and mastitis, and it is reported that 10% of dairy cattle are culled due to this affliction.

One of the most common questions dairy farmers ask is how to create an effective program to control digital dermatitis (DD), which is often followed up with the statement that despite their best efforts to run frequent footbaths, they still seem to struggle with too many cases of DD.

From growing up on a dairy farm to leading research efforts around hoof health and lameness, Dr. Gerard Cramer has devoted his life to improving the quality of life for dairy cows.

Lameness affects nearly 25% of dairy cows worldwide. Data from the last five years suggests that when lesions occur in first lactation or before, there is a high probability the same lesion will occur again in consecutive lactations.

In the first 72 hours, her body is transforming from maintenance to high performance. Her body is being transformed like a caterpillar into a butterfly.