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One of the most important factors affecting dairy output is the comfort and welfare of your cows. If there’s something wrong with your dairy cow, it’s time to take action. But the best way to have a consistently healthy herd is to know the signs of a healthy cow and prevent any illness and disease. It is relatively easy to identify a healthy cow with practice.
A healthy cow will not have any irregular movements, they will have a shiny and smooth coat, bright and alert eyes, and upright ears. Their dung will be soft and their urine should be clear. If you notice anything wrong with your dairy cow, contact your vet as this could be detrimental to the rest of your herd.
If you want to know more about spotting tendencies of a healthy herd or would like to know more about certain symptoms your cows may be experiencing, let’s examine the signs of good health in dairy cows.
General appearance – Your dairy cow will be alert to its surroundings and stand squarely on four hooves. They generally hold their heads up high to see what’s happening all around.
To learn more about the signs of a healthy cow, here is an in depth study by Australia’s National Science Agency that goes into further detail about how to observe your cows, their actions, signals and risk factors.
Keeping an eye on your herd, observing their characteristics, behaviours, and any changes in the aforementioned normal behaviours will be the first signs of problems with your cow’s health. Prevention is always better than intervention and will save you time, money, and resources as well as preserving your cow’s health and productivity.
There are many things you can do to ensure the good health of your cow remains consistent. Here are a few things to consider to keep your herd healthy:
Unlimited access to fresh drinking water is just as important, if not more so, than having enough food. Cows consume between 3 and 30 gallons of water per day. While this is a pretty broad range, you can calculate effective water consumption by adding 1 gallon of water per 100 pounds of the cow during cold weather, and 2 gallons per 100 pounds during hot weather.
Make sure to empty your water tank at least twice a week and disinfect it once a week. Dirt at the bottom of a water tank may cause irritation or allow bacteria to grow.
Like all earthbound mammals, cows want maximum fresh air and ventilation. The optimal temperature of a lactating cow is -5 to 18 degrees celsius. At low temperatures, cows require extra energy to keep themselves warm. If the temperature reaches above 25 degrees celsius, cows will feed less and begin to show other signs of heat stress. Keeping your animals sheltered in a barn with good ventilation and tools to regulate temperature keeps your herd happy and healthy, and much more comfortable.
Multiple studies have shown that cows that are more comfortable produce more milk through their productive life. Happy cows like to lie down on a soft and textured surface and their milk production relies on it. When a cow is lying down , their blood circulation to the udder increases by 30% and research shows milk yields increase, so finding the right bedding is key. When choosing your bedding, keep in mind that softer bedding prevents excess tension on the front knee and pelvis and good grip prevents falling and sliding.
If your cows are kept sheltered in a barn, cows are much more comfortable out of the elements with regulated temperatures lying time is maximised which can also increase their milk production. With the help of a composting barn the bedding provides a soft ground and the microbiota of the composting organic material has an added benefit of restricting the growth of pathogenic bacteria that often cause mastitis in cows.
Clean out the bedding of any urine or excretion up to three times a day to avoid illness and infection. Fill or layer the bedding with padding (organic materials such as wood shavings, sawdust or paper) up to twice a week.
Dairy cows often eat as much as 45 kilograms of feed a day, made up of a balanced combination of forage, grain, mineral supplements, and protein-rich substances such as soybean meal. Forage is the foundation of a cow’s diet and includes pasture grass, or chopped grass, also known as silage.
By investing in a livestock barn with SmartShelters you can easily monitor your cattle’s feed, making sure each individual cow is getting the balanced nutrients they need. This can even reduce wastage of feed.
Dry forages are pasture (fresh forage) or high-quality alfalfa hay, alfalfa-grass mix hay, grass hay, or straw. Some dairy farmers will feed a mix of both silage and hay, while others might only feed silage or only feed hay, depending on the farm and availability. The other half of the diet is called concentrate.
If your cattle appear gaunt, it may be that they are not receiving enough intake or perhaps they are not eating and drinking properly. An additional sign of this could be that their abdomens bounce when they walk. Rapid weight loss or change in body condition usually also indicates an underlying illness. Other signs of illness that occur later include laboured breathing, deep coughing, eye and nasal discharge, bloody diarrhoea, or depression.
An unbalanced walk or back curvature may suggest lameness or digestive difficulties. A swollen neck can be due to a low feeder fence or incorrectly adjusted barn equipment. If you’re concerned about udder health, carefully inspect the teats before milking. If they are swollen, painful to the touch, or inflamed, this is usually a sign of mastitis. The condition of the udder can be affected by hygiene problems or inadequate rationing. If chewing is slow and incomplete, their teeth or oral cavity will usually have visible signs of problems. Too little or too much saliva could also be a sign of infection.
A SmartShelters client was experiencing a serious issue with lameness in their cattle and reduced their milking to once a day to minimise walking for the cows. The farm lost $100k production per season by transitioning to this method and was spending $60k a season on lame cow culls, treatment and vets bills.
He invested in a SmartShelters composting barn for $350k and is already seeing great results. He aims to get to 600kg per cow in the first season and then maintain this level of production. He is already eradicating the issue of lameness and stressed that he hadn’t even anticipated other advantages that come with the barn, Such as safer calving, heat stress relief and future compliance that he is already reaping the benefits from.
To prevent the transfer of infections between herd members, it’s important to establish protocols such as the quarantining of new cattle and isolation of any affected animals. Infections can spread rapidly between confined animals.
Although it’s difficult to convert the cost of cow welfare, an estimate per sick cow left out in the elements could range around the $200 mark. Read our clients Brian and Paddy’s testimonial about how they were blown away by the increase in herd health with the implementation of our composting barn.
Our research with our clients has proven that investing in SmartShelters can improve herd health through a range of different factors such as the regulation of temperatures and climate, clean and warm bedding, easier monitoring and early detection of cattle issues, controlling and regulating feed intake, safer calving and more.
By monitoring and recording data of your herd health, you can identify, diagnose, and manage many issues early on before they become untenable. Monitoring is also important for large herds where simple, small, or subtly noticeable changes can suddenly have significant effects. The information is important for the timely identification of epidemics, identification of animals to cull, effectiveness of the control of sick cows, and to provide information to your vet.
Farmworkers can be trained to be aware of signs of ill health in cattle. They can learn how to identify symptoms of premature lameness, damage of the teats, and of mastitis . The detection of disease can be challenging if it becomes symptomatic later in the disease progression, so small changes in routine and behaviour will likely be the first indication of something being wrong.
By SmartShelters | September 15th, 2021 | Cattle Management | Comments Off
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Heat stress is no stranger to New Zealand dairy farmers, with drier regions of the country such as Northland, King Country, and the Bay Of Plenty each
averaging over 80 sweltering hot heat stress days every year.
In New Zealand, every dairy farmer worth their salt knows just how important it is to look after the welfare of their animals. The health of the herd directly impacts profit margins, which, in turn, determines the viability and sustainability of the farm.
As a nation of farmers with a proud agricultural history, New Zealand is at the forefront of the dairy industry, renowned as a global industry leader with some of the best animal welfare standards in the world.
Protect what matters with New Zealand-made shelters built on 100 years of trusted expertise. Contact us today!
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