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Dairy Cattle Herds Management: Methods and Perspectives

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A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Cattle".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2022) | Viewed by 11633

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Wojciech Barański

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Guest Editor

Department of Animal Reproduction with Clinic, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Warmia and Mazury, Oczapowskiego 14, 10-719 Olsztyn, Poland
Interests: cattle; reproduction; endometritis; herd health management

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Milk consumption is increasing all over the world, but simultaneously, a trend has been observed in recent decades in a decrease in the number of farms. The consequence of this is an increase in the number of animals in farms that stay on the market, which means that their owners are under pressure to maintain profitability on one side and meet consumer demands concerning animal welfare, use of medicines, and the environmental influence of the modern dairy industry on the other. Thus, the role of herd management and herd health is becoming increasingly important and has to meet the challenges of balancing high yield and reproductive performance, rearing healthy animals during their entire life, decreasing the number of the diseases in cows, and preventing the spread of germs that may influence human health. The next issue is the increased antibiotic resistance both in human and veterinary medicine, mainly caused by the extensive use of these products. forcing farmers, veterinarians, and researchers to develop new strategies to cope with it.

Original manuscripts that address any aspects of herd management are invited in this Special Issue. Topics of special interest are how the management of the dairy herds will develop to be able to decrease subclinical diseases, limit the use of antibiotics, and implement on-farm methods to analyze health status and production of dairy cows. Additional topics may include effects of proper herd management on the environment or climate.

Dr. Wojciech Barański
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Management
Herd health
Reproductive performance
Antibiotics
Calves rearing
Welfare
Environment

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 2004 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Application of a Bio-Economic Model to Demonstrate the Importance of Health Traits in Herd Management of Lithuanian Dairy Breeds

by Šarūnė Marašinskienė, Rūta Šveistienė, Barbara Kosińska-Selbi, Christin Schmidtmann, Jehan Frans Ettema, Violeta Juškienė and Morten Kargo

Animals 2022, 12(15), 1926; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ani12151926 - 28 Jul 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1383

Abstract

Assessing the economic importance of traits is crucial for delivering appropriate breeding goals in dairy cattle breeding. The aim of the present study was to calculate economic values (EV) and assign the importance of health traits for three dairy cattle breeds: Lithuanian Black-and-White open population (LBW), Lithuanian Red open population (LR) and Lithuanian Red old genotype (LROG). The EV estimation was carried out using a stochastic bio-economic model SimHerd, which allows the simulation of the expected monetary gain of dairy herds. The simulation model was calibrated for LBW, LR and LROG breeds, taking into account breed-specific phenotypic and economic data. For each trait, two scenarios were simulated with a respective trait at different phenotypic levels. To obtain the EVs, the scenarios were compared with each other in terms of their economic outcomes. In order to avoid the double counting of the effects, the output results were corrected using a multiple regression analysis with mediator variables. The EVs were derived for the traits related to production ECM (energy-corrected milk), fertility, calving traits, calf survival, cow survival and direct health. To demonstrate the importance of health traits in herd management, we provided reliable EVs estimates for functional traits related to herd health. The highest EV for direct health traits, caused by an increase in of 1 percentage point, were those found for mastitis (EUR 1.73 to EUR 1.82 per cow-year) and lameness (EUR 1.07 to EUR 1.27 per cow-year). The total costs per case of ketosis, milk fever and metritis ranged from EUR 1.01 to EUR 1.30, EUR 1.14 to EUR 1.26 and EUR 0.95 to EUR 1.0, respectively. The highest economic values of dystocia were estimated for LROG (EUR −1.32), slightly lower for LBW (EUR −1.31) and LR (EUR −1.23). The results of this study show the importance of health traits to the economic features of cattle herd selection of new breeding goal and this would improve the herd health. The economic evaluation of the functional traits analyzed in this study indicated the significant economic importance of the functional traits in Lithuanian dairy cattle breeds. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dairy Cattle Herds Management: Methods and Perspectives)

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14 pages, 799 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Effect of Frequency of Fresh Pasture Allocation on the Feeding Behaviour of High Production Dairy Cows

by Jessica G. Pollock, Alan W. Gordon, Kathryn M. Huson and Deborah A. McConnell

Animals 2022, 12(3), 243; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ani12030243 - 20 Jan 2022

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2053

Abstract

For ruminants, grazing and ruminating activities are essential in nutrient capture and ultimately animal performance however these activities can demand significant time and energy. This study evaluated the effect of three different pasture allocation frequencies (PAF’s; 12, 24 and 36 h) on the feeding behaviour of grazing dairy cows. Eighty-seven spring calving dairy cows were divided into three treatments. Animals were rotationally grazed with fixed paddock sizes of 0.14 ha, 0.28 ha and 0.42 ha paddocks for the 12 h, 24 h and 36 h treatments, respectively. Animals (14 per treatment) were fitted with behaviour halters that monitored feeding activity. Diurnal feeding patterns were evident for all animals irrespective of PAF, concentrating the majority of grazing during daytime (90%) and ruminating activity during night (73%). Treatment significantly affected feeding behavior patterns. Peak grazing activity coincided with fresh pasture allocation in the 12 h and 24 h treatments. In the 36 h treatment, grazing was more evenly distributed over each 24 h period with peak grazing activity witnessed daily between 17:00 and 19:00 regardless of fresh pasture allocation, suggesting lack of anticipation of fresh feed delivery. In the 12 h treatment primiparous animals exhibited greater grazing and ruminating activity relative to multiparous animals in the 12 h treatment highlighting the impact of competition for resources within each feed on lower dominance animals. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dairy Cattle Herds Management: Methods and Perspectives)

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Review

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19 pages, 761 KiB

Open AccessReview

How to Predict Parturition in Cattle? A Literature Review of Automatic Devices and Technologies for Remote Monitoring and Calving Prediction

by Martina Crociati, Lakamy Sylla, Arianna De Vincenzi, Giuseppe Stradaioli and Maurizio Monaci

Animals 2022, 12(3), 405; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ani12030405 - 08 Feb 2022

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 7332

Abstract

Cattle farming is facing an increase in number of animals that farmers must care for, together with decreasing time for observation of the single animal. Remote monitoring systems are needed in order to optimize workload and animal welfare. Where the presence of personnel is constant, for example in dairy farms with great number of lactating cows or with three milking/day, calving monitoring systems which send alerts during the prodromal stage of labor (stage I) could be beneficial. On the contrary, where the presence of farm personnel is not guaranteed, for example in smaller farms, systems which alert at the beginning of labor (stage II) could be preferred. In this case, time spent observing periparturient animals is reduced. The reliability of each calving alarm should also be considered: automatic sensors for body temperature and activity are characterized by a time interval of 6–12 h between the alarm and calving. Promising results have been shown by devices which could be placed within the vaginal canal, thus identifying the beginning of fetal expulsion and optimizing the timing of calving assistance. However, some cases of non-optimal local tolerability and cow welfare issues are reported. Future research should be aimed to improve Sensitivity (Se), Specificity (Sp) and Positive Predictive Value (PPV) of calving alert devices in order to decrease the number of false positive alarms and focusing on easy-to-apply, re-usable and well tolerated products. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dairy Cattle Herds Management: Methods and Perspectives)

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