Herd Health

The C.O.W.S. program has been successful in working with dairy producers and their teams to unlock bottlenecks in their operations.

Cow health, nutrition and reproduction are key when trying to find the best options for the transition period of dairy cows. That said, there is a lot of information about nutritional strategies that can be tough to sort through.

When close-up cows are fed a negative dietary cation-anion difference (DCAD) diet, it induces a metabolic acidosis, which acidifies the urine.

Recent research from the University of California – Davis offers further indication oral calcium supplementation may support increased milk production in addition to supplying the extra calcium needed to ward off subclinical hypocalcemia.

As we move forward as a society, the dairy industry will continue to have to justify the use of antibiotics on their operations.

Editor’s note: This is the first of two articles about managing the maternity area and newborn calves using a team approach. Click here to read the second article "Praiseworthy newborn calf specialists check these boxes".

Maternity is a classically overlooked and poorly understood area of the farm.