As a dairy producer, you want your cows to be happy, healthy, and producing lots of milk. Diseases in the dry period, such as mastitis, have significant impacts on the health and productivity of dairy cows. Key management decisions taken during this time have an important impact on the next lactation of the cow. Here are some tips on how to help prevent these diseases from occurring and keep your cows feeling their best.
Uncover your most profitable strategies for preventing cow diseases in the dry period
Tip 1: Provide Proper Care
Providing proper care in the dry period is essential for preventing diseases in dry off, but also postpartum, in the transition period. This includes monitoring cows for signs of illness, providing adequate rest and nutrition, and ensuring that cows are able to begin producing milk normally again after calving.
After the dry period comes calving, a stressful event for cows. We all know that cows need time to recover after calving. The way to recovery depends on your farm and transition management around calving. CowManager sends you early transition alerts on an individual level, notifying you of which cows might be at higher risk after calving.
Read more and learn how to predict herd risks in the transition period.
Tip 2: Monitor Cow Health
Monitoring cow health on a regular basis can help to identify potential health issues early on. Producers should be on the lookout for signs of illness, changes in behavior and temperature. The most missed diagnosis in the dry period is mastitis. You won’t see the infection as the cow is not being milked in this period.
Did you know that with CowManager, you can monitor changes in behavior when a cow has an infection, is in pain, or has any levels of stress? Over 80% of mastitis cases within 60 days after calving originate from an infection in dry period. An infection will lead to less feed intake. Combine your experience with (historical) cow data in CowManager to make the most accurate management decisions together with your advisors, analyzing data history in MultiView.
Tip 3: Ensure Proper Hygiene In Your Environment
Maintaining a clean and hygienic environment is important for preventing the spread of diseases. Producers should ensure that barns and equipment are regularly cleaned and disinfected to prevent the growth and spread of harmful bacteria.
Improve your herd management over a period of time by setting target lines in CowManager for group health. See how your herd is performing in comparison to a certain virus outbreak period, for example. Together with your veterinarian or nutritionist, you can track recovery with historical data with MultiView and set targets for rumination or eating.
Tip 4: Provide Proper Nutrition For Your Herd
Proper nutrition is essential for the health and productivity of cows, particularly in the dry period. Providing a balanced diet that meets the nutritional needs of cows can help to prevent diseases in this period. Make sure your cows are getting all the nutrients they need to stay healthy.
With a monitoring system like CowManager, you can monitor feed intake around calving, so you can adjust nutrition accordingly. Like humans, cows eat less when they are not feeling well. Another, ‘simpler’, reason for a severe drop in eating time can be that cows are out of feed. CowManager will then send a ‘low feed intake alert’.
Why CowManager
Improve Health & Production
Optimize your farm management by finding cows in heat and catching sick cows earlier, improving your herd’s health and production.
Monitor Your Herd’s Health 24/7
Our Health Module provides early disease detection! CowManager cows live longer, produce more milk, are in better shape and therefore perform better.
Monitor Transition, Reduce Risk
The Transition Monitor identifies cows at risk up to 50 days before calving, ensuring proactive intervention and reducing transition diseases.
Can’t wait to check out the system?
We could tell you a lot more about our cow monitoring system, but we’d rather show you. Download our Demo App, and we’ll take you on a virtual tour through all the possibilities. Let’s go!