Fat and fatty acid metabolism and digestion in the dairy cow are of considerable interest, both to scientists and the dairy industry. This renewed interest is based on several reasons; first, the use of dietary fat supplements has increased, and will continue to do so, as nutritionists strive to increase the energy density of diets to meet requirements of the high producing dairy cow; second, w...

AIM In India, dairy industries are important for the livelihood of small scale farmers and dairy owners. Tropical theileriosis, mostly affecting dairy cattle and buffaloes is a major threat to dairy and related industries. Tropical theileriosis is caused by Theileria annulata, a hemoprotozoan parasite transmitted by Ixodid ticks of Hyalomma spp. In the present study, we examined the clinical si...

Considerable progress has been made over the last 30 years in the United States to develop systems that describe protein requirements and protein adequacy of diets for dairy cows. Ration formulation systems have moved from balancing diets for crude protein (CP) and digestible protein to the use of nutritional models (e.g., NRC, 2001; CNCPS, CPM-Dairy, and Amino Cow) that recognize that the cow ...

Introduction Milk somatic cell count is considered as an indicator for raw milk quality and udder health status in dairy cows (4, 6). Many approaches have been made to determine milk somatic cell counts in dairy cow and goat both in the field and laboratory including California Mastitis Test (CMT, a cow side test), Fossomatic cell count (FSCC), and Direct Microscopic Count (DMC) (1,7). These co...

BACKGROUND Mortality risk in Danish dairy cows has more than doubled since 1990 (from 2% in 1990 to 5% in 2005). Until now, registrations about dead cows in the Danish Cattle Database have not included information about whether the cow died unassisted or was euthanized. METHODS We interviewed a random sample of 196 Danish dairy farmers that had reported a dead cow to the Danish Cattle Databas...

BACKGROUND The dairy industry has undergone substantial structural changes as intensive farming has developed during recent decades. Mastitis continues to be the most common production disease of dairy cows. Nationwide surveys of mastitis prevalence are useful in monitoring udder health of dairy herds and to study the impact of structural changes on the dairy industry. This survey on bovine sub...

In pasture-based milk production systems, using available farm resources in order to reduce feeding costs, the composition and functional properties of dairy cows’ milk are of considerable importance to the dairy farmer, manufacturer and consumer. Basically, there are three options for altering the composition and/or functional properties of milk: 1) cow nutrition and grazing management, 2) cow...

“Gradual dryoff” is the practice of skipping some milkings before cessation of milking a cow at the end of lactation. I was taught in agricultural and vet school classes that this was to be avoided; abrupt dryoff no skipped milkings is physiologically superior for the cow. Nevertheless, like most dairy veterinarians, I experienced clients using gradual dryoff sometimes. When I was a resident at...

The combined use of solar photovoltaics and agriculture may provide farmers with an alternative source income reduce heat stress in dairy cows. objective this study was to determine the effects on grazing cattle under shade from a photovoltaic system. conducted at University Minnesota West Central Research Outreach Center Morris, dairy. Twenty-four crossbred cows were randomly assigned 2 treatm...

This animal simulation model, named e-Cow, represents a single dairy cow at grazing. The model integrates algorithms from three previously published models: a model that predicts herbage dry matter (DM) intake by grazing dairy cows, a mammary gland model that predicts potential milk yield and a body lipid model that predicts genetically driven live weight (LW) and body condition score (BCS). Bo...