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Fresh cow’s diseases prevalence and consequences in 42 Spanish Dairy Farms
Guadagnini, M.; Charfeddine, N.
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Objectives: The transition period is the most important part of the lactation cycle for dairy farms profitability (Overton T. 2001). Most diseases occur during the first month of lactation (Leblanc S. et al., 2006) and can have a big impact on productivity. CONAFE, supported by Elanco Animal Health, started in 2015 a new project called “I-SA” on health traits monitoring with the aim of improving herd management and genetic selection. The scope of this data analysis is to increase the knowledge about fresh cow’s diseases prevalence in Spanish dairy herds, understand their risk factors and impact on milk production.
Materials and Methods: 42 Spanish dairy herds across the country have been voluntary enrolled into a fresh cow’s diseases data collection. Diseases occurrence have been recorded by the farmer and transferred to the local DHI association. Records include 18,043 lactations with 3 years calving dates from 2016 to 2018. Attempts to reach disease recording standardization have been made by providing disease definitions to farmers and suggesting to involve farm vets in disease diagnosis. Occurrence of the following diseases have been recorded throughout the first 68 days in milk (DIM), the highest 2nd test limit: Displaced Abomasum (DA), Clinical Mastitis (MAST), Retained Placenta(RP) and Metritis(METR). Other information proceed from the DHI database: herdcode, birthdate, calving date, parity, somatic cell count (SCC) and milk production at first and second test, BHB levels at first test (except for 3 farms), 305 days milk production. First tests between 5 and 25 DIM having BHB levels >0,1 mmol/liter have been considered as Ketosis (Viña C. et al., 2017, Renaud D. L. et al., 2019); first tests having >200 000 SCC/ml have been considered as Subclinical Mastitis (Ruegg P. 2017). Other variables were created: first calving age in categories, estimated cumulative production of the first 68 DIM (ICAR 2002). Descriptive statistics and multivariate models have been used to describe disease prevalence, determine risk factors and quantify concequeces on milk production. Statistically significant results were identified using a p<0.05.
Results: The dataset is composed by 33% first lactation animals (parity 1), 27% second lactation (parity 2) and 39% ≥3 lactations (parity 3+). Mean age at first calving was 25.3 months, with farm averages ranging between 23.4 and 28 months. Mean clinical diseases prevalence during the first 68 DIM was 3.11% for DA (0.76-7.73%) 4.58% for MAST (0- 35.91%), 8.50% for RP (1.21-20.90%), 10.29% for METR (0.56-30.94%). Ketosis prevalence was 23%, with a farm prevalence range 4.55-50%. 31% of the farms (n=12) had a Ketosis prevalence greater than 25%. Subclinical mastitis at first test (5-35 DIM) was 21%. Statistically significant differences across parities were found for the risk of: DA (3+ vs. 2, Relative Risk (RR)=1.73 and 3+ vs. 1, RR=1.94), MAST (3+ vs. 2, RR=1.86 and 3+ vs. 1, RR=2.24), RP (3+ vs. 2, RR=1.36; 3+ vs. 1, RR=1.61; 2 vs 1, RR=1.17), METR (3+ vs. 2, RR=1.23 and 2 vs. 1 RR=0.80), Ketosis (3+ vs. 2, RR=1.23; 3+ vs. 1, RR=2.18; 2 vs 1, RR=1.33) and Subcl. Mastitis (3+ vs. 2, RR=1.99 and 3+ vs. 1, RR=1.92). Age at first calving categories had a correlation with Ketosis risk (>27mo vs. <24mo, RR=1.80) and Subclinical Mastitis risk (>27mo vs. 24-27mo, RR=1.22 and >27mo vs. <24mo, RR=1.36).
Production losses at first test for ketotic cows vs. non-ketotic cows were 1.7 kg for lact=1 and 1.3 kg for lact>1 (p<0.0001). Production losses on 68 DIM cumulative production were 478 kg for DA, 179 kg for MAST, 163 kg for RP and 140 Kg for METR (p<0,0001). 305d milk losses were 725 kg for DA, 651 kg for MAST, 302 kg for RP and 173 Kg for METR (p<0.0001). Ketosis has not been included in the 305d milk model, as the proper way to analyze ketosis lactational impact on milk production is a testday model, which could not be built with currently available variables (Gröhn Y. et al. 1999).
Conclusions: Once again, transition cow’s diseases importance have been demonstrated. Proper recording and analysis can increase our knowledge of the real prevalence at farm and country level, improve understandings of risk factors, estimate production losses and, finally, lead to a better transition management and genetic selection.
Keywords: Transition period, Dairy, Diseases, Spain.
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Affiliation of the authors at the time of publication
Elanco Animal Health, Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy;
Confederación de Asociaciones de Frisona Española (CONAFE), Valdemoro (Madrid), Spain.
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