Health and Welfare
Health and Welfare
Dairy Articles
The dry period is the most important stage of the lactation. It prepares the cow and her udder for the upcoming lactation as well as delivering a healthy calf. These are two important components of generating revenue for the dairy.
Feeding practices have a huge impact on herd health and performance, so the importance of delivering a consistent feeding program is paramount to herd profitability.
As a professional hoof trimmer, I have experienced days so hot that I wished I had a swimming pool nearby to dive into. This summer has seen excruciating high temperatures in Western Canada, with temperatures in Alberta hitting 40 degrees Celsius!
The overall goal of herd health management programs is to ensure the optimal care and well being of dairy cattle. The two key aspects of a successful health management program are 1) timely intervention, and 2) the administering of effective treatments. The earlier a sick cow is identified and effectively treated, the lesser the negative economic impact of the illness will be.
Robotic milking is a hot topic as labor shortage weighs heavily on dairy owner’s minds.
There are two aspects to the management of a dairy’s health program. The first is the management’s ability to identify sick cows in a timely manner. The second is administering the proper treatment effectively.
Proper cow care is the basis for good milk production and reproduction. Yet, despite all the effort towards a high level of cow care, the quality of care cows actually get tends to be lesser than the quality of care herd management believes the cows are getting. Let’s unpack this
Feed quality is the basis for profitable milk production. We all try to serve the best quality feed to our cows but as hard as we try, life on a farm brings unexpected surprises when you least expect them.
Once these first two stages have been successfully implemented we would expect that improved cow welfare, improved nutritional control, and improved health of the herd have a positive impact on both milk production and reproductive performance.
On average, the first six to eight months following the installation of an electronic animal monitoring system is the time span needed for a user to master the challenges of running efficient reproduction and health programs on a Basic User level.
