Dairy producers know that animal health is a critical component of their herd’s productivity and profitability. At the herd level, disease problems must be assessed not only for their severity in affected animals, but also for frequency of occurrence, costs of treatment, influence on production, relationship to culling and influence on death losses.
Knowing where to invest time, energy and money into disease treatment and prevention is important, but difficult.
Researchers at Colorado State University are trying to develop a new tool for producers to use to make health management decisions based upon cost of disease on individual operations.
The idea is to merge health problems and subsequent outcomes into a single economic assessment based on a measure of population health called a Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY). It measures the economic burden of premature death or removal and time lived in less than full health.
Using a dairy DALY can help producers focus on the best areas to reduce costs associated with preventable deaths and diseases. In order to accomplish this, diseases must be 1) effectively monitored, and 2) assessed for their cost and impact on productivity and longevity. This demands accurate assessments of milk loss, treatment costs, subsequent health problems and the likelihood of culling or death for a given disease.
We believe that the cumulative experience of dairy owners, managers and veterinarians will provide a powerful tool for evaluating the impact of diseases, based on real world experience. In other words, the severity of diseases can be calculated through the consensus of experts in the field.
You are one of those experts. We need your help in establishing realistic estimates of disease problems on dairies. We are asking for input regarding the cost, severity and likelihood of culling animals with specific health problems. Feedback from producers, managers and veterinarians will help redefine how we approach the costs associated with death and disease.
We will combine survey results with other information to provide an innovative evaluation of the underlying economics of animal health issues on dairies.
The survey will take about 15 minutes. Your information will remain anonymous and confidential. Thank you for choosing to be a part of this research. Your time and effort is greatly appreciated. PD
Ashleigh McNeil is a master’s degree candidate in the Department of Clinical Sciences at the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University.
