Detecting Calf Pneumonia Before Symptoms Appear
In addition to our established modules for cows, CowManager introduced the Youngstock Monitor for calves last year. The program enables dairy farmers to improve their calf management. At the Benninghoff Milchenergie farm, herd manager Anna Schaate and her calf team have long been using CowManager for cows and young cattle over ten months, and it now also helps them to successfully detect respiratory disease in calves at an early stage.
Calf health is an important aspect of dairy farming because only healthy calves become productive dairy cows. Farmers and vets are always looking for tools to help them rear healthier calves and reduce the reliance on antibiotics. Pneumonia, in particular, has long been a major challenge in calf rearing. It poses a risk of permanent damage to the lungs and can later on lead to reduced performance as a dairy cow. In practice, the problem is that the infection is often not noticed initially and only severe cases with clear symptoms are clinically apparent. CowManager’s Youngstock Monitor is a valuable tool for detecting sick calves at an early stage. The major advantage of this system is that it flags calves with a health warning and provides an alert even before the animals start showing visible signs of illness.
“I tend to rely on figures, data, and facts, and that’s why I like working with CowManager’s health data for calves.”
Early detection of changes in activity with CowManager
And that’s precisely why herd manager Anna Schaate from Benninghoff Milchenergie in Bevern decided to use CowManager for calves too. “I tend to rely on figures, data, and facts, and that’s why I like working with CowManager’s health data for calves,” she explains, “because once calves stop drinking, you’ve got a major problem on your hands.” At first she thought that she wouldn’t see much difference in activity because the young calves don’t move around that much. “But I came to realize how useful CowManager is when it comes to the early detection of calf pneumonia.” The health warning allows her to recognize early in the day which calves are deviating from the group average in terms of activity and drinking. She then considers information on group changes, rehousing, weaning, and dehorning as this may also influence the data. If there are no such factors to consider, Anna Schaate then examines the calves in question with an ultrasound scan of the lungs.
“We’ve found that CowManager shows us the animals that have pneumonia two days earlier than we would have recognized their labored breathing and general poor health. Since we started consistently monitoring the calves using a combination of CowManager and LungScan, we’ve been able to treat the pneumonia before the symptoms become apparent”
Early stages of respiratory disease are detected in good time
The CowManager health lists are checked three times a day. Anna Schaate identifies calves with deviations and then examines them with her colleagues from the calf team. Depending on the diagnosis, the calves are treated with anti-inflammatory drugs or painkillers. “We’ve found that CowManager shows us the animals that have pneumonia two days earlier than we would have recognized their labored breathing and general poor health,” she reports. “Since we started consistently monitoring the calves using a combination of CowManager and LungScan, we’ve been able to treat the pneumonia before the symptoms become apparent,” adds the herd manager. “I’m not a fan of the blanket use of antibiotics, so we only really treat calves when it is absolutely necessary,” she says, explaining another advantage of this approach.
Working with a vet on prevention
The herd’s vet, Hanna Strodthoff-Schneider, confirms the benefits of using activity monitoring for the early detection of disease: “With pneumonia in particular, it allows us to identify the affected calves at a very early stage of the disease – at a time when lung tissue is showing minimal change on the ultrasound.” The vet goes on to explain that as lung tissue cannot regenerate, any loss of functional tissue results in a permanent decline in lung function. Early diagnosis using an activity monitoring system can therefore help to minimize structural changes in the lungs. “It is likely that this will also have a positive effect on lactation performance later on,” says Hanna Strodthoff-Schneider. Despite these undisputed benefits, she underlines that every dairy farm should be aiming to minimize cases of pneumonia from the outset with appropriate feeding practices as well as optimal housing and environmental conditions.
“If this helps us to rear more high-quality heifers that are well-prepared for the start of lactation, then it will have been worth it!”
Consistent hygiene management, health monitoring, and treatment
Herd manager Anna Schaate agrees. “Consistent compliance with hygiene measures and constant monitoring of housing conditions, for example with adequate ventilation, is extremely important in the prevention of calf disease. Damp conditions and draughts must be avoided,” she adds. “We make sure to check the ventilation in all barns on a regular basis and install new ventilation tubes when necessary. We also shave three strips on the backs of older calves so that they can dry off more quickly.” She is confident that this combination of hygiene management, health monitoring, and early treatment has considerably improved the health of the calves on the farm. Lung scans take five to ten minutes per calf, but she considers it worth the time as cases of acute and chronic respiratory disease have decreased significantly. The impact on staff satisfaction and motivation is also noticeable as working with healthy animals is much more enjoyable than trying to alleviate the pain of sick animals. “If this helps us to rear more high-quality heifers that are well-prepared for the start of lactation, then it will have been worth it!” she says.
Learn more about Benninghof Milchenergie and their experiences with CowManager.