Herd Health

“Implementation of best management practices for transition cows will plausibly improve metabolic health, immune function and regulation of inflammation,” says Luciano Caixeta, DVM, Ph.D., and associate professor at the University of Minnesota.

Of all the performance indicators you can monitor on the dairy, fresh cow performance ranks near the top, since the start of the lactation really determines the rest of the lactation.

Ask any producer who consistently feeds close-up dry cows a negative-DCAD diet if it makes a difference for transition cows, and the answer will be yes. Producers routinely report that when cows are metabolically acidified, they have strong labor and calve quickly with fewer problems.

Nutritional management during the transition period is very important, as it affects health, milk production and reproductive performance of dairy cows.

Crossbred dairy beef is big news as dairy producers seek to diversify and capture the most value from their bull calves, heifers that aren’t needed for the milking herd or cows which are no longer going to be bred for replacement purposes yet still have a productive milking life.

As the pressure to use fewer antibiotics continues to grow, animal agriculture needs to be inventive and find different solutions to treat animals or keep livestock healthy from the start.