Herd Health

Not long ago, my colleague Chip and I visited a 600-cow dairy farm in Texas that was looking for some help. They were struggling with these things:

Digital dermatitis, also referred to as “hairy heel warts,” produces painful lesions that can lead to lameness in cows, ultimately resulting in decreased milk production and lowered reproductive performance.

Dairy barns are meant to be comfortable and safe housing for cattle. But other animals tend to make a barn their home as well. These uninvited visitors pose a serious threat.

Milking in a parlor is hard work. It is fixed on certain times and requires a great deal of labor. For that reason, both small farms and large farms are looking at options to automate milking.

Body condition scoring (BCS) is a simple and powerful technique that, by evaluating the thickness of subcutaneous fat and therefore its mobilization, evaluates animals’ energy balance, which is highly associated with health and performance.

Feeding a prepartum ration with a negative dietary cation-anion difference (DCAD) minimizes the risk of both clinical and subclinical hypocalcemia.