Herd Health

Talking about cow comfort involves listening to and understanding numerous opinions on this issue. Nevertheless, what is real cow comfort? How can it be judged? In addition, maybe even more importantly, how can it contribute to profitable dairy farming?

Nuisance flies are a vector of disease and an irritant to cattle and workers on a dairy operation. Because of the confined nature of a dairy, it is important to use an integrated pest management (IPM) program for effectively controlling fly populations.

Bedding choice directly influences cow comfort, but the decision on which material to put underneath cows must consider several other factors, such as cost, availability, ease of handling, udder health, pathogen growth and more.

Dairy cows need water to turn feed into milk – a product that is already nearly 90 percent water.

Achieving ideal water intake comes down to two criteria: quantity and quality.

Proposed changes announced for FARM 4.0

Proposed changes for Version 4.0 of the National Dairy FARM (Farmers Assuring Responsible Management) program – dealing with animal care – were released on Feb. 25.

Rumination, or a cow chewing her cud, is a vital part of a cow’s digestive system. If you examine a herd at any point in the day, you’re almost sure to find a majority of the cows ruminating. With advances in technology, rumination monitoring systems have become a popular way to measure rumination, which means they are also able to give us other information related to the cow’s nutrition, digestion and breeding.