Cowside Tests for Monitoring Metabolic Disease

The transition dairy cow is an animal at risk for the development of metabolic diseases. When necessary, veterinarians have traditionally relied upon analysis of blood samples, either in-house or at regional diagnostic laboratories, to aid in the diagnosis of these diseases. The development of routine herd monitoring has increased the amount of recommended blood sample analysis. An obstacle for doing more monitoring of fresh cows has been the difficulty and cost of sampling. Recently, cheaper and simpler “cowside” tests have become increasingly available for both the diagnosis of individual sick cows and the routine monitoring of fresh cow groups. Many of these tests have focused on the detection of ketosis. Proper understanding of the advantages and limitations of these cowside tests will aid in the selection of the proper test for the proper situation, thereby delivering the most useful results possible.