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Cow down
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<blockquote data-quote="bovine" data-source="post: 3440460" data-attributes="member: 12486"><p>I think you are probably right, but on the farms that do it (and seemingly do well) there are generally other areas having a bigger effect on production that I would concentrate on first.</p><p></p><p>The evidence does show clinical milk fever to be an 'iceberg' disease - so for every cow down with milk fever many others have low blood calcium levels. We do know these cows with low calcium but not down with clinical milk fever have reduced performance. I don't know of anything looking at these supplemented cows to see specifically how they perform based on calcium levels. When trying to investigate a MF problem it can be difficult to catch these cows with low calcium, so a short period of well targeted supplement may well prevent the knock on problems. </p><p></p><p>I'm not saying its the best thing to do, but on some farms it seems to work well. Particularly on smaller units where it's not possible to group dry cows as you may be able to with bigger numbers. There are other issues with the transition period that come into play (BCS change, length, feed correctly to drive intake after calving).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="bovine, post: 3440460, member: 12486"] I think you are probably right, but on the farms that do it (and seemingly do well) there are generally other areas having a bigger effect on production that I would concentrate on first. The evidence does show clinical milk fever to be an 'iceberg' disease - so for every cow down with milk fever many others have low blood calcium levels. We do know these cows with low calcium but not down with clinical milk fever have reduced performance. I don't know of anything looking at these supplemented cows to see specifically how they perform based on calcium levels. When trying to investigate a MF problem it can be difficult to catch these cows with low calcium, so a short period of well targeted supplement may well prevent the knock on problems. I'm not saying its the best thing to do, but on some farms it seems to work well. Particularly on smaller units where it's not possible to group dry cows as you may be able to with bigger numbers. There are other issues with the transition period that come into play (BCS change, length, feed correctly to drive intake after calving). [/QUOTE]
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