In this study, process enhancements achieved by the use of 3D printed feed spacers based on triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) were comparatively assessed using two most common membrane distillation (MD) configurations: air gap (AGMD) and direct contact (DCMD). The MD performance was impact spacer design (TPMS vs. commercial spacer) flux channel pressure drop, their consequent levelized co...

An understanding of the normal estrous-cycle length of the cow is important when managing and monitoring dairy-herd fertility. Although the normal interovulatory interval is widely considered to be 21 d, some studies have found alternative intervals to be more prevalent; previously, most of the variation in interval length was expected to be between cows. The aim of this study was to assess the...

Uterine diseases such as metritis and endometritis are highly prevalent in high producing dairy cows. These diseases lead to impaired welfare and fertility, and result in economic loss. The objective of this review article is to provide the current understanding of the underlying causes of uterine diseases and to provide some strategies to prevent them. The causes of uterine diseases are comple...

Cow energy balance is known to be associated with cow health and fertility; therefore, routine access to data on energy balance can be useful in both management and breeding decisions to improve cow performance. The objective of this study was to determine if individual cow milk mid-infrared spectra (MIR) could be useful to predict cow energy balance across contrasting production systems. Direc...

BACKGROUND Acute puerperal metritis affects cows during the early postpartum period and causes fever, fetid vaginal discharge and general depression. The disease is severe and treatment with antimicrobials is often required. This study followed 79 Swedish dairy cows with acute puerperal metritis with registered treatment and outcome in terms of recovery. Bacteria isolated from the uterus and th...

The indirect effects of mastitis treatment are often overlooked in cost-benefit analyses, but it may be beneficial for the dairy industry to consider them. The cost of mastitis treatment may increase when the duration of intra-mammary infections are prolonged due to misdiagnosis of host-adapted mastitis. Laboratory diagnosis of mastitis can be costly and time consuming, therefore cow-side tests...

This paper examines the cost efficiency of dairy farms in 2 important regions of commercial milk production in Poland (i.e., Wielkopolskie and Podlaskie). Both regions gained importance following the market-driven resource allocation mechanism adopted after Poland's transition to the market economy in 1989 and accession to the European Union (EU) in 2004. The elimination of the dairy quota syst...

The objective of this study was to estimate the heritability of a number of traditional and endocrine fertility traits in addition to d-56 predicted milk yield (MY56), and the genetic and phenotypic correlations between these traits. Various fixed effects such as season, year, herd, lactation number, diet, percentage Holstein (PCH) of the cow, and occurrence of uterine infection (UI), dystocia ...

People with diabetes walk slower and display biomechanical gait alterations compared with controls, but it remains unknown whether the metabolic cost of walking (CoW) is elevated. The aim of this study was to investigate the CoW and the lower limb concentric joint work as a major determinant of the CoW, in patients with diabetes and diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN). Thirty-one nondiabetic c...

Milking data of 34 single automatic milking system (AMS) units on 29 Galician dairy farms were analyzed to determine the system capacity in each farm under actual working conditions. Number of cows, milk yield, milkings per cow per day, actual milking time, rejected milking time, cleaning time, and machine downtime were used to determine the number of cows milked per AMS unit to obtain the opti...