The Whole and the Parts—A New Perspective on Production Diseases and Economic Sustainability in Dairy Farming

Calf health veterinary services: Making them work for calves, farmers and veterinarians

BACKGROUND

Despite an appetite among UK veterinarians (vets) and farmers to improve calf health, vets face challenges in delivering and sustaining proactive calf health services.

METHODS

Forty-six vets and 10 veterinary technicians (techs) participated in a project to determine what makes calf health services successful while improving their own services. In four facilitated workshops and two seminars, carried out between August 2021 and April 2022, participants described their approaches to calf work, discussed measures of success, identified challenges and success factors, and addressed knowledge gaps.

RESULTS

Many approaches to calf health services were described, and these could be categorised into three overlapping models. Success involved enthusiastic, knowledgeable vets/techs, supported by their practice team, fostering positive attitudes among farmers by providing the services they need, creating a tangible return on investment for farmers and the practice. Lack of time was identified as the most prominent challenge to achieving success.

LIMITATIONS

Participants were self-selected from one nationwide group of practices.

CONCLUSION

Successful calf health services depend on identifying the needs of calves, farmers and veterinary practices, and delivering measurable benefits to each. More calf health services embedded as a core part of farm veterinary practice could bring wide ranging benefits to calves, farmers and vets.

Early Milk Total and Differential Cell Counts as a Diagnostic Tool to Improve Antimicrobial Therapy Protocols

Mastitis is a major cause of antimicrobial treatments either during lactation or at drying off. From a One Health perspective, there should be a balance between the risk of IMI that may impair cow health and welfare and the reduction of antimicrobial usage to decrease antimicrobial resistance, as may happen when applying selective dry-cow therapy. This reduction may be achieved by an early and accurate diagnosis followed by prudent and rationale therapeutical protocols. This study aims to assess the accuracy of PLCC (neutrophils + lymphocyte count/mL) in identifying cows at risk of having IMI due to major pathogens (S.aureus, Str.agalactiae, Str.uberis, and Str.dysgalactiae), and to simulate the impact of this early diagnosis on the potential number of treatments using a decision-tree model. The results of this study showed that PLCC had an overall accuracy of 77.6%. The results of the decision-tree model based on data from the 12 participating herds, with an overall prevalence of major pathogens of 1.5%, showed a potential decrease in the number of treatments of about 30% (from 3.4% to 2.5%) when PLCC in early lactation (days 5-16) was used to identify cows at risk for major pathogens compared with using SCC at the first milk test (days 17-43). The study confirmed that it is possible to improve animal health and reduce the risk of antimicrobial use through early IMI detection based on PLCC and applying a rationale and prudent antimicrobial protocol.

Global Dairy Sector: Trends, Prospects, and Challenges

Currently, there is a strong need to find practical solutions towards meeting the expected efficiency and overcoming recurring sustainability challenges in the global dairy sector [...]