There is growing interest among the public in farm animal welfare and a need for methods to assess animal welfare on farm. A survey on calf rearing practices that might affect dairy calf welfare was performed via a 1-h interview on 115 dairy farms (mean +/- SD: herd size=52.5+/-20.9 cows; milk production=8,697+/-1,153L) distributed throughout the province of Quebec. Despite frequent recommendat...

Left displaced abomasum (LDA) is a severe metabolic disease of cattle with a strong negative impact on production efficiency of dairy farms. Metabolic and inflammatory alterations associated with this disease have been reported in earlier studies, conducted mostly in large dairy farms. This research aimed to: (1) evaluate metabolic and inflammatory responses in dairy cows affected by LDA in sma...

Our objective was to determine the role that European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) play in the epidemiology of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in dairy cattle. We visited 150 dairy farms in Ohio twice during summer and fall months from 2007 to 2009. Fresh faecal pats from 30 lactating cows were collected during each visit. Information on farm management and environmental variables was gathered through...

The major sources of variability in net farm income on New York dairy farms over the past 10 years are identified using Dairy Farm Business Summary records. The most important source of income variability is the fluctuation in milk prices, followed closely by year-to-year variation in the quantity of purchased feeds. These results suggest that forward pricing of milk and feed purchases may be e...

We assessed the in vitro activity of selected antimicrobial agents against 95 Staphylococcus aureus strains causing both clinical and subclinical bovine mastitis belonging to 61 dairy farms from the Central dairy area of Argentina. Minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of penicillin, oxacillin, gentamicin, erythromycin, enrofloxacin and florfenicol were estimated. In addition, the agar diffu...

Feed is the single largest operating expense on dairy farms and should be considered one of the most important variables behind successful production, animal health, and profitability of a dairy. Annual feed costs per milking cow can average $1000 to $1200 per year, or $100,000 to $120,000 for every 100 milking cows. Despite this fact, only a minority of dairy farms closely track feed quality v...

Copyright 2005 by Helena Johansson. All rights reserved. Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies. Abstract Technical, allocative, and economic input efficiency scores were estimated for an unbalanced panel of Swedish dairy farms, using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the stocha...

Ammonia gas is the only significant basic gas that neutralizes atmospheric acid gases produced from combustion of fossil fuels. This reaction produces an aerosol that is a component of atmospheric haze, is implicated in nitrogen (N) deposition, and may be a potential human health hazard. Because of the potential impact of NH3 emissions, environmentally and economically, the objective of this st...

We analyzed how three different dairy management systems –continuous grazing, confinement and management intensive grazingcompare across nine sustainability indicators set by the Dairy Stewardship Alliance. A self-assessment survey comprising animal husbandry, biodiversity, energy, community health, farm financials, nutrient, pest, water and soil management was assessed twice across the same fa...