Choose the right cows for mastitis treatment – do not treat without testing

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Traditions for treating mastitis in cows varies but statistics show that most of the antibiotics used in milk-producing herds are used in mastitis treatments.

Many mastitis treatments are without effect. By critically selecting cows for treatment, the efficacy of treatment improves, and antibiotic useage is lowered. Good udder health in the herd requires careful and efficient mastitis management. Classifying cases of mastitis according to severity makes it possible to select the correct cows for antibiotic treatment.

Grade all mastitis incidents by their severity and follow a simple decision tree for each case. The cases can be divided into three categories: mild, moderate and severe cases.

MILD CASES: Visible changes in milk. The udder is soft, the cow generally seems unaffected and has a normal appetite.

MODERATE CASES: Visible changes in milk. The udder is swollen but the cow generally seems unaffected. The appetite and milk yield might be slightly decreased.

SEVERE CASES: Visible changes in milk and a swollen gland. The cow is systemically affected and sick with fever, loss of appetite and severely reduced milk yield. The cow needs intensive care.

Confirm with the vet how to manage the different categories of mastitis, how to treat the individual case and how to follow up by using a simple decision tree.

Support the calf to obtain better vaccination results

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Farms specialized in bull calf rearing from a very young age often experience high frequencies of respiratory diseases. Specially during the first month after arrival. Calves are often exposed to radical changes and challenges in this period.

Vaccination could be a useful tool to enhance immunity. In other cases, vaccination seems to weaken the calves and trigger outbreaks of disease, often when calves are stressed. Whenever vaccinating, try to create the best possible conditions for the calf and minimize factors negatively affecting their immunity:

  • Opt for short transport time (max. 1-2 hours) to limit dehydration, hypothermia and exhaustion
  • Avoid mixing calves from different farms on the same truck
  • Insert calves in a clean box
  • Keep calves in small groups – preferably in pairs – at least for the first 6 weeks
  • Avoid mixing calves of different origin in the same box
  • Segregate groups of calves by solid walls or panels
  • Make sure all calves have easy access to fresh water – preferably lukewarm water from a bucket or trough
  • Feed sufficient amounts (minimum 6-7 liters/ day) of good quality milk replacer
  • Start milk feeding on the day of arrival
  • Secure good air quality and avoid draught
  • Avoid moving, mixing, feeding changes and other negative factors 3-4 days before and after vaccination

Intra-nasal vaccines can be applied at the day of arrival. Let other vaccinations wait until the calves are in a positive energy balance (e.g. from 2 weeks after arrival).

Purchasing policy and quarantine of breeding gilts

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What measures can you take to mitigate the risk of disease introduction to your farm when purchasing live breeding stock?

First, try to avoid the purchase of live breeding stock to minimise the risk of introducing diseases through live animals. If you do purchase breeding animals, take the following measures into account:

  • Always buy from the same supplier, to avoid contamination from multiple farm disease profiles. This helps to prevent new diseases being brought in, against which there may not yet be immunity on your farm.
  • Ensure that your supplier has the same or a higher sanitary status than your own farm for the diseases for which (official) control programs exist.
  • Limit the purchasing frequency. The more often animals are purchased and delivered, the higher the chance of disease transmission.
  • Ensure that the vehicles which deliver the animals are thoroughly cleaned and disinfected between each delivery so that they do not bring any germs from a previous company onto your farm.
  • Make sure that the gilts are always first housed in a quarantine. If done correctly, the purchased animals can be thoroughly evaluated for disease symptoms, and the necessary vaccinations can be carried out.

A good quarantine:

  • Is an entirely separate air volume (i.e. separated from other stables, both above and below ground).
  • Has a distinct hygiene lock in which you can change footwear and clothing and wash your hands when entering and leaving the stable.
  • Is only refilled after it is completely empty and has been cleaned and disinfected.
  • Should be long enough (at least 28 days recommended). Bear in mind that for some infectious diseases (ex. M. hyopneumoniae) a longer quarantine is necessary. A 40-day quarantine is undoubtedly not a superfluous luxury.

Thermal floor disinfection with a flaming device in poultry barns for better prevention of coccidian and bacterial infections

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Thorough cleaning and disinfection between subsequent production cycles is a key management practice in broiler and turkey farming for disease prevention and lowering the infection pressure in the poultry barn. Still, in floor-housed production systems, the flooring can remain a reservoir of pathogenic organisms. Cracks and holes in the flooring can be difficult spots to thoroughly disinfect and remain a potential hide-out for pathogenic bacteria and coccidian oocysts and worm eggs. The eradication of coccidian oocysts can be especially challenging since these organisms are very persistent and largely unaffected by chemical disinfectants with the exception of ammonia.

An effective disinfection method, proven in practice, is thermal disinfection or disinfection based on radiation. Thermal disinfection is carried out with a machine with a heat of 750°C making contact with the flooring for only a few seconds during which the top layer of the floor gets heated up to 300 to 400°C . The limited contact with the floor prevents damaging the concrete flooring, but effectively kills pathogenic organisms. Some specialized poultry service companies offer this solution and are also able to disinfect the walls of the barn in a similar way, eradicating harmful pathogenic organisms from the poultry barn.

On-farm tractor-mounted flaming devices are available as well and allow for a cost-effective method for poultry barn disinfection.

Colostrum management in lambs

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Colostrum contains a complex mixture of proteins that actively participate in the protection of the neonate, through passive immune transfer, against pathogens and other postpartum environmental challenges.

Animals growing under an artificial rearing system need to be fed, by bottle, an adequate amount of colostrum during their first days of life, to obtain adequate passive immune transfer and increase future productivity. It has been reported that lambs not fed colostrum in the first hours of life are more susceptible to diseases and mortality. Therefore, it is crucial to provide an optimal colostrum source.

Lambs need to be fed an amount of colostrum (pasteurized at 63 degrees Celcius for 30 minutes) equivalent to 8 g of IgG/ Kg body weight, divided into three equal meals in the first 24 h after birth, given 2, 14 and 24 hours after birth. This corresponds, on average, to about 150-200 ml colostrum per feeding. The amount of colostrum produced by the mother and its composition can be affected by several factors such as nutrition and/or litter size. Lambs fed with cow colostrum run the risk of developing anaemia. In addition to the amount of colostrum fed, management during the milk feeding and weaning period, such as stress produced by dam separation, milk quality and suckling frequency, can affect the final immune status of lambs.

Thus, feeding the newborn ruminants with adequate quantity of colostrum, as early as possible after birth, is an effective good practice to obtain good passive immune transfer for optimal protection of lambs, so their health is improved and less likely to need antibiotic treatments for the infections.

Clearing Farm-specific colostrum from Johne’s disease causative MAP bacterium to prevent horizontal cow-calf transfer of paratuberculosis.

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Johne’s disease or Paratuberculosis in cattle can cause detrimental productive and economic losses to dairy and beef farms as well as impaired animal welfare in clinical and terminal stages of the disease. Control and eradication of the disease are difficult and lengthy considering the long incubation time of the disease, the infected animals shedding the MAP-bacterium (Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis) long before clinical signs occur and the absence of accurate diagnostics in the early stage of infection.

It is clear that prevention is better than cure. However, in the eradication of the disease it is important to stop direct transfer from the cow to the calf. One aspect of this strategy includes clearing the MAP bacterium from the colostrum of infected cows before feeding it to newborn calves. While colostrum can be pasteurized to kill off bacteria you also risk destructing the much needed maternal antibodies that offer the calves their immunological protection in the first weeks of life.

ILVO’s food pilot has developed a decontamination protocol consisting of different heat treatments and centrifugation steps to clear the colostrum from MAP whilst optimally preserving the antibody count. First the colostrum gets heated up to 53°C for 30 minutes followed by skimming. Next is another heating step up to 70°C for 30 minutes. Afterwards the colostrum is cleared by centrifugation and bottled in easy to use and sizable portions. This service allows dairy and beef farmers to have their farm-specific colostrum cleared from the MAP bacterium.

Flushing the drinking pipes in broiler farming

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Drinking water is an essential feed for broilers. Over the course of its life, a chicken will drink twice as much water as it will eat food. If this water is too hot at the drinkers, the chicks’ water consumption will decrease, which can harm the growth of the animals, especially during the first days of rearing.

In addition, biofilm, which also develops in the pipes when the flow rate is low and the temperature is high, is a risk factor for bacterial development and clogging of the drinking system.

Purging the pipes regularly and under pressure allows the biofilm stuck to the walls to be removed and the hot water to be replaced by cooler, cleaner water from the network or drilling point. The chickens are better hydrated and thirst quenched. The chicks perform better in early life, reducing the need for antibiotic treatments. Farmers observe improved weight gain in broilers at five days of age.

However, if purging is done manually, it can be very time-consuming and wasteful of water. To limit these inconveniences, the installation of an automatic purging system is a good idea: purging can be programmed to be carried out at certain times of the day, triggered directly from the box in the building, or remotely with a smartphone.

Weaning piglets

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Weaning is a difficult time for both piglets and sows. To reduce the negative effects of weaning, the sow and piglets must be prepared for this critical event. In Romania, on large farms weaning is done at the age of 35 days when the piglets weigh on average 6-8 kg, and in small subsistence farms, it is done at the age of 8 weeks when they weigh 12-14 kg. The rules of weaning refer mainly to the gradual transition of piglets from the infant regime to the regime of weaned piglets, namely: providing additional fodder to piglets from 7-8 days of age so they can gradually increase intakes and become accustomed to solid feed, and reducing the number of milk feeds 4-5 days before weaning. Reducing access to suckling leads the piglets to consume additional feed in larger quantities.

This action is recommended as follows:
-5 days before weaning, 4-5 suckling opportunities;
-4 days before weaning, 3-4 suckling opportunities;
-3 days before weaning, 2-3 suckling opportunities;
-2 days before weaning, 1-2 suckling opportunities;
– one suckling allowed on the day of weaning.

The sow leaves but the piglets remain in the maternity ward for 5-10 days, depending on the technology that is applied. 2-3 days before weaning, the amount of feed administered to the sows is reduced, and on the day of weaning the sow does not receive feed, but only water ad libitum.

Optimal housing for healthy and less stressed dairy cattle

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Housing conditions influence the health of dairy cows and significantly reduce unexpected expenses. Sometimes minimal changes without too much expense can have a significant effect on the health, welfare and productivity of a dairy herd.

Photoperiod, remote surveillance, regular hygiene, cow comfort, heat stress prevention, and providing enrichment activities are practical actions that a farmer can take into account in providing optimal housing conditions for dairy cows. Also, there should be provided natural ventilation, sloping and non-slip floors, and a drinking front accessible to the entire population. Free stables offer the highest degree of satisfaction with welfare standards compared to tied stables.

Regardless of the accommodation system, the animals must have a comfortable and dry resting area. It is recommended to set up a dedicated accommodation space for different age groups and different operating facilities for veterinary care.

An important role is also played by the quality of the milking system chosen by the farmer. It is already known that automated milking facilities ensure the hygienic quality of milk, but not all small farms are able to invest in modern automated systems.

Last but not least, it must be kept in mind that regular shelter hygiene is essential for maintaining animal health and prevents unforeseen additional costs.

The influence of low temperature on dairy cows

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The low temperature below the thermal neutrality zone influences the comfort, health and production of dairy cows. The thermal comfort in the dairy cow depends on age, breed, feed intake, production, housing conditions, body fat deposits, skin condition and animal behavior. The function of thermoregulation becomes functional after the disappearance of the blood fructose, respectively after 6 days in calves.

The effect of the low temperature on the metabolic and physiological adaptation for dairy cows is identified by: increased consumption of dry matter, increased frequency of rumination, increased motility of the gastrointestinal tract, increases basal metabolic rate and energy requirement for the maintenance of vital functions, consumption of body oxygen, increases heart rate, increases adrenaline, cortisol and growth hormones, lipolysis, glycogenogenesis, glycogenolysis, increases production of liver glycogen. At the level of the body, peripheral vasoconstriction occurs, the reduction of heat loss through sweating and the increase of thermogenesis.

In the Holstein-Frisien breed, milk production remains constant in the range -10 … 12°C, while in Jersey breed the production gradually decreases to below + 5°C (explained by the low body weight).

In order to alleviate cold stress, the following are recommended: measures to prevent the freezing of water and water storage tanks, increasing the amount of feed, especially high-energy feed, preventing the increase of humidity inside the shelter, keeping the udder dry by using dry bedding.