Fresh cows are the most important, and most vulnerable, group of cows in the barn. Between post-calving stress and the metabolic demands of lactation, the immune system of a cow is suppressed during the transition period, leaving her susceptible to a variety of diseases – like mastitis and metritis – that can impact your herd’s milk production and overall profitability.
Given the current economic climate, it’s not uncommon for dairies to cut their losses and replace cows with disease challenges to minimize up-front treatment costs and labor expenses. While this can be tempting, I must remind producers of the production potential at stake when deciding to forgo treatment on an older, high-producing cow simply because we have a heifer to take her place.
In a highly competitive dairy market, dairies are leaving no rock unturned when it comes to ramping up efficiencies and productivity. And sometimes it is multiple small adjustments in several areas that lead to a big impact. In my experience, the perfect opportunity to maximize production potential and financial impact is to tune up transition and fresh cow management.
Monitor cow health at each transition
As a veterinarian, I spend a lot of time helping dairies troubleshoot fresh cow challenges. We can learn a lot by tracking what’s happening in the days leading up to calving, in the maternity pen and within the first 60 days of lactation. Here’s what we’re keeping an eye on:
1. Pre-calving
Starting at 30 days pre-calving, assess body condition score and feed intake to ensure cows can eat enough to support their growing calves, the forthcoming lactation and effective immunity. Pre-calving also is a crucial period for minimizing stress. This is a good time to think about the transition journey for cows and how you can minimize group changes, pen moves and overcrowding to help reduce social stress. It can take two to five days for a group of cows to become socially stable following a pen move. Perhaps worse is the negative impact these social disruptions can have on dry matter intake (DMI).
2. Freshening
Maintain clean, dry facilities to prevent the spread of disease, and devote employees to observe maternity pens at least hourly to monitor cows in active labor and identify births that may require intervention. Moving cows during the early stages of labor also can be problematic, leading to increased stillbirth rates as well as the need to assist delivery and the incidence of metritis.
3. Post-calving up to 60 days
Implementing a 10-day fresh cow monitoring program can help ensure timely treatment and reduce moves to the hospital pen. Regularly evaluate attitude and appetite, manure quality, tail and ear position, and uterine discharge of cows; listen to heart, lung and rumen sounds for abnormalities; and make note of fevers above 103ºF. However, keep your eye on these cows for the next 60 days. Disease impacts and culling during this time can indicate a management opportunity.
Key benchmarks for fresh cow management success
The Transition Cow Risk Assessment, developed by the University of Wisconsin – Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, is an evaluation of transition cow management risk factors. It provides objective benchmarks to help dairies identify which bottlenecks have the potential to make the biggest impacts on ensuring fresh cow health and productivity:
1. Give cows space
How much space your cows have to eat and move around in can positively or negatively impact their disease risk. Aim for at least 100 square feet per cow of bedded pack area and at least 30 inches per cow at the feedbunk during the transition period.
2. Watch them walk
Hoof health is a welfare issue and is critical for achieving adequate DMI. Less than 10% of transition cows should have a pre-fresh locomotion score of 3 or 4 on a 4-point scale.
3. Monitor body condition
Too high or too low body condition score (BCS) predisposes cows to illness. Aim to have fewer than 10% of pre-fresh cows with a BCS less than 2.5 or greater than 4.0.
4. Reduce pen moves and lockup time
Evaluate the number of pen moves that occur from pre-calving through post-calving. Work with your veterinarian to reduce that number. Aim for an hour or less of lockup time for fresh cow monitoring.
5. Extend fresh cow monitoring to 60 days in milk
Don’t lose sight of fresh cows once they leave the fresh pen. Cows that experience fresh cow diseases like metritis and mastitis are at an increased risk of being culled during the first 60 days of lactation. An extended monitoring period can help you recognize management opportunities and improve productivity.
- Monitor first-test somatic cell counts (SCC), and keep an eye on the percentage of cows with SCC of 200,000 milliliters per cell or greater at their first DHIA test day. This increase in SCC could indicate an undetected infection and lead to other problems.
- Keep an eye on culling and death rates in the first 60 days in milk.
Even slight management modifications can go a long way in improving your dairy’s productivity and profitability. Focusing on opportunities in your transition and fresh cow programs can help you get ahead of disease and manage treatment expenses.
But more importantly, it will increase the productivity and longevity of your cows. Work with your veterinarian to implement a sound transition and fresh cow management program and visit dairywellness.com to learn more.
References omitted but are available upon request by sending an email to an editor.
Successful fresh cow management best practices
Proper transition and fresh cow management focuses on maximizing pre- and postpartum health to ensure peak performance in early lactation. Here are four key elements that can make or break transition cow success:
1. Provide solid nutrition
- Challenge: Fresh cows can experience a negative energy balance from calving due to the sudden increase in milk production and decreased dry matter intake (DMI).
- Opportunity: Monitor pre-calving and post-calving feed intake and regularly consult with your nutritionist to prevent deficiencies in the nutrition program beyond ration formulation.
2. Identify disease early
- Challenge: Fresh cow diseases can hinder lactation and subsequent reproductive efficiency.
- Opportunity: Work with your veterinarian to train employees to recognize early disease symptoms to properly diagnose and treat cows according to farm protocol.
3. Administer fast and effective treatments
- Challenge: Long-term and recurring disease treatments can take a toll on bottom lines for producers.
- Opportunity: Keep cows in your herd longer by treating sick cows as soon as they’re identified to minimize disease duration, prevent relapse and reduce costly re-treatments. Consider treatment options with zero milk discard to avoid moves to the hospital pen. This is beneficial for minimizing social stress and exposure to other diseases, while keeping milk in the tank and minimizing risk of an antibiotic residue.
4. Identify disease risk prior to breeding
- Challenge: Deciding which cows to invest in and treat can feel like a guessing game.
- Opportunity: Genomic testing can be a great way to predict an animal’s risk of future disease, helping you make more educated culling and breeding decisions.
