Dairy Digest
Edited by Dr. Jud Heinrichs, Professor of Dairy and Animal Science, Dairy Digest features articles by Penn State's experts in dairy management, engineering, herd health, and related areas. Dairy Digest has been published by the Department of Dairy and Animal Science and Penn State Cooperative Extension since 1963.
Evaluating and monitoring dehydration in your dairy calves is an important task for the dairy calf manager.
EPA has taken a giant step in the expected regulation of air emissions (especially ammonia) from AFOs (animal feeding operations) including dairies.
Are you one of the many producers who have been practicing good conservation for at least the past few years? Now a new USDA program, the Conservation Security Program (CSP), is available to reward you for your efforts.
How would you rate the respectability of your dairy farm in relation to your environment, neighbors, cows and workers?
Leptospirosis is a worldwide infectious bacterial disease of many animal species causing abortion, stillbirths, milk loss and reproductive inefficiency. Leptospiral organisms can infect humans, thereby becoming an important zoonotic disease.
Evaluating the feed bunk of high producing dairy cattle is important to help determine if they are being fed in a manner that meets their nutrient needs. Your feeding system along with your feeding strategy, or the way you manage the system, is crucial to providing the majority of your cows with balanced diets in adequate amounts.
When we discuss the effect of lameness on reproductive performance we generally focus on the concept that lame cows are generally less likely to engage in mounting activity. Cows need sound feet and legs to seek out cows in heat, mount them or be mounted if they are in heat themselves. If this basic requirement is compromised then efficiency and accuracy of heat detection will be low. On average, cows are in heat for approximately 7 to 8 hours. This is a narrow window of opportunity to detect healthy cows in heat and presents a real challenge to detect lame cows in heat.
Penn State researchers have developed a program to help you train employees responsible for calf care. The CalfTrack calf management training system includes standard operating procedures (SOPs) for many calf care tasks, an orientation video, a health scoring system, and a detailed reference manual. In addition, most materials are available in both English and Spanish.
Antibiotics are used in livestock production as therapeutics, growth promoters, and prophylactics.
Observing the health status of a dairy calf is an important part of being a competent calf raiser.
A new fact sheet titled “Nitrogen, Ammonia Emissions and the Dairy Cow” (DAS 04-87) is available from dairy and animal science.
Besides the somewhat similar spelling of their names, do these diseases have anything in common?
It is worth reviewing once again the requirements for success that are common to all systems.
