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...

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...

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...

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...

Results from the USDA:APHIS:VS National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) Dairy 2002 survey reported that approximately 5% of dairy cows die, onfarm, across the country each year. This is a very high death rate compared with that of beef cows or feedlot animals, where annual death rates were estimated at 1 to1.5%. In the NAHMS survey unknown reasons accounted for the largest percentage (2...

With the aim to review the nutrition of ruminants, this paper studies and reviews the types of nutrition method for dairy cows by the case study of dairy cow. This research is applied based on the objective, has the library type in terms of data collection, and is among the survey research based on the research methodology. The method of library documental studies was used in order to collect d...

objective: sera from 186 sheep (93 rams and 93ewes) from tabriz, north-west of iran were evaluated for antibodies to toxoplasma gondii using a commercial elisa kit. methods: the animals were divided into two age groups (< 2 years, and > 2 years). results: antibodies to t. gondii were found in 13 of 186 sheep (6.98%). infection rate in ewes was higher than rams but this difference was not signif...

the objective of this study was to determine the effects of feeding different levels of monensin on feed intake, milk production and composition, and milk fattyacid profile in lactating holstein cows. four multiparous cows averaging 517 ± 47 (sd) kg in body weight and 101 ± 19.8 (sd) days in milk were housed individually in tie-stalls. the study was conducted as a 4 × 4 latin square design for ...