BACKGROUND Prudent use of antibiotics is important to prevent antibiotic resistance in humans and in animals. For this reason politicians demanded a decrease of total antibiotic use and of use of critically important antibiotics in animal husbandry in the Netherlands. In the dairy sector the use of antibiotics almost halved in the years 2009-2015, with a decrease of the use of critically import...

Mastitis is a significant disease of adult dairy cattle affecting up to 40 percent of cows within a herd at any given time. Recent surveys show that udder health problems are consistently the most frequent cause of morbidity with the US dairy cattle population (Table 1). The U.S. dairy industry loses an estimated $2 billion every year due to mastitis, with reduced milk production accounting for...

BACKGROUND Bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) is an infectious disease of cattle with a worldwide distribution. Herd-level prevalence varies among European Union (EU) member states, and prevalence information facilitates decision-making and monitoring of progress in control and eradication programmes. The primary objective of the present study was to address significant knowledge gaps regarding herd ...

14 15 In this paper the implementation of a tool was considered, based on Machine Learning (ML) techniques to improve 16 the detection of subclinical mastitis in dairy herds. The analysed population included 71 dairy farms in Asturias 17 (Northern Spain) and a total of 2,407 lactating cows. Four sources of information were available: a) a questionnaire 18 survey describing facilities, milking r...

The objectives of this study were to estimate genetic correlations among body condition score (BCS), dairy form, milk yield, and days open in US Holsteins and investigate the potential of using BCS or dairy form evaluations as early indicators of days open. Dairy form and BCS obtained from the Holstein Association USA, Inc., were merged with mature equivalents (ME) for milk yields and days open...

This review focuses on the potential effects of twinning, dystocia, stillbirth, abortion, retained placenta and metritis on the productive and reproductive performances in dairy cattle. These are diverse disorders that are similar in that they all can result in impaired performance of dairy cows. Reproductive problems occur frequently in lactating dairy cows and can dramatically affect reproduc...

JAVMA, Vol 230, No. 6, March 15, 2007 T US dairy industry is moving toward fewer dairy farms with more cattle per farm. Between 1995 and 2005, the number of dairy farms decreased by 43.9% (from 139,670 to 78,295), but the total number of milk cows decreased by only 4.5% (from 9.47 to 9.04 million). Consequently, the average herd size for dairies in the United States has almost doubled during th...

Salmonella Dublin is a bacterium that causes disease and production losses in cattle herds. In Denmark, a surveillance and control program was initiated in 2002 to monitor and reduce the prevalence of Salmonella Dublin. In dairy herds, the surveillance includes herd classification based on bulk tank milk measurements of antibodies directed against Salmonella Dublin at 3-mo intervals. In this st...

Dairy farms in some arid areas around the world have to use drinking water that contained elevated total dissolved solids (TDS); however, very limited data is available concerning water TDS effects on health status and blood mineral levels of cattle. The aim of this study was to compare 3 dairy cattle groups in several dairy farms with different drinking water TDS: High (HTDS; >4000 ppm), Mediu...

At present, very little information exists regarding what role the environmental slurry may play as an infection reservoir and/or route of transmission for bovine digital dermatitis (DD), a disease which is a global problem in dairy herds. To investigate whether DD-related bacteria belong to the indigenous microbiota of the dairy herd environment, we used deep amplicon sequencing of the 16S rRN...