Oral and Poster Abstracts

Xylazine (0.1 mg / kg / h). 35 minutes after the start of TIVA the animal
showed signs of being in a superficial stage and the anesthesia was
complemented with diazepam (0.05 mg / kg) associated with cetamine
(0.5 mg / kg) intravenously. This association was repeated twice more
during the TIVA 30 and 60 minutes after the first dose. At the end of the
procedure, a epidural catheter was placed in the space between the first
and second coccigean vertebras through which morphine was
administered at a dose of 1.0 mg / kg once a day for three days.
Throughout the anesthetic period heart and respiratory rates were
monitored and also periferic oxygen saturation and protective reflexes.
The anesthesiologic procedure lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes.
25 Concept, Implementation and Evolution of Uniform, a
Veterinary-Based Herd Health and Production Management
Program for the Dairy Veterinary Practice and Farms
B. Van Ranst 1 , T. Caluwaerts 2 , HJ. Van der Beek 1 , G. Opsomer 2
1
Uniform, Assen, Netherlands
2
Ghent University, Dep Reproduction, Obstetrics and Herd Health,
Merelbeke, Belgium
To fulfil the current (and future) consumers: wish to have high quality
milk for a low price at their disposal, farmers will need to significantly
adapt their business. Herds will have to grow continuously and a
further selection of cows with an ever increasing genetic potential to
produce milk will be necessary to remain competitive. High yielding
dairy cows however need significantly more attention in terms of cow
comfort, animal welfare and disease control. To protect the animals
from major infectious diseases on the one hand and to safeguard the
milk from being contaminated with pathogens on the other hand, herds
will furthermore need to possess strict prevention and control protocols
based on regularly carried out surveillance and monitoring programs
including full traceability of animals, feed, the use of drugs etc. The
veterinarian will play a crucial role herein. While farmers need to be
more and more qualified to manage their high yielding cows, their time
management becomes more and more critical in the ever growing
herds. Therefore, in modern herds a steeply growing automation is
currently going on. Mobile data collection, increased use of on-farm
sensors (activity- and milk meters, in-line milk analysis) and a higher
automation rate in milking parlours start to revolutionize working
routines and protocols of both vets and farmers. Besides the automated
collection of data, their centralisation and interpretation is evenly
important. New internet features like dairy data warehouse are
therefore becoming more and more popular and maximize the (re-)use
of all timely gathered data. Overall globalization furthermore
stimulates benchmarking on a worldwide level and necessitates farmers
and veterinarians from all places in the world to be able to
communicate and interact with each other. The Uniform dairy herd
health and production program will be presented in terms of the above
mentioned points. Concepts, methodology and results will be
discussed. The program actually runs on more than 6.750 dairy farms in
more than 25 countries.
Key words: dairy, herd health, automation, software program
26 Lactation Curve Analysis in Dairy Herd Management
M. Krogh, C. Enevoldsen
Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Department of
Large Animal Sciences, Copenhagen, Denmark
Milk yield at herd and lactation level have been used to compare
herds and cows for decades. The total milk production during a
lactation is financially important. However, milk production in early
lactation is less efficient than later in lactation and the milk
production often is affected by disease. Consequently, important
information about efficiency and health can be derived from the
profiles of milk production at lactation and herd level (“lactation
curves”). The objective of this study was to provide a set of reference
values that allows us to perform “lactation curve benchmarking”. We
modelled milk production within herds for calvings during the last 2years.
There were 6-11 milk recordings per year per cow and milk,
fat and protein were transformed into Energy Corrected Milk
(ECM). We specified a random coefficient regression model with
Herd Health Management and Epidemiology
Results: The animal showed satisfactory answer to the protocol of
sedation, being observed almost no side effects. Soon after
beginning the TIVA transient respiratory depression was noticed.
The respiratory rate decreased form 17 (baseline) to 7. This
depression lasted 25 minutes and then the parameter returned to
baseline values. There were no significant changes at heart rate and
oxygen saturation.
Conclusion: The anesthesiologic protocol was effective for the
completion of the procedure, demonstrating hemodynamic stability,
satisfactory analgesia and no complications.
Key words: camalid, total intravenous, TIVA
piecewise linear effects of stage of lactation (DIM). Both fixed and
random effects of “peak” at 60 DIM, slope before 60 DIM
(acceleration) and slope after 60 DIM (persistency) were estimated
separately for first, second and later lactations (3 fixed and 3 random
effects per parity group). From the covariances we estimated
correlations between peak and slopes. This baseline model
consequently allows us to monitor the major characteristics of the
lactation curves within herd and within parity group. Estimates were
derived from 542 similar herds (Danish Holstein cows). The table
below shows the distribution of estimates from third lactation and
older. The data shows that there is a large proportion of herds where
the slope before 60 DIM is steeper than after 60 DIM. Such
“atypical” lactation curves may be indicators of some major
management or health problem. The variances of the slope estimates
represent the uniformity of the cows within herd. This may also be
an important and objective health indicator as poor management and
health probably will increase variance. Correlations between peak
and persistency may indicate efficiency. In conclusion the estimates
provide valuable information about achievable goals for lactation
curve characteristics.
Lactation curve 25%-percentile Mean 75%-percentile
characteristics
(ECM)
Peak at 60 DIM 35.4 37.8 40.2
Change from -1.7 -0.1 1.2
10 to 60 DIM
(„acceleration”)
Change from -16.5 -14.7 -12.9
60 to 305 DIM
(persistency)
Variance of peak 29.8 42,2 50.4
Variance of 30.2 47.3 61.3
acceleration
Variance of 33.2 49.9 61.8
persistency
Correlation -0.65 -0.53 -0.43
between peak
and persistency
27 Developing and Marketing a Beef Production Medicine
Program in Private Practice
W. Hilton
Purdue University, School of Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary
Clinical Sciences, West Lafayette, United States
Beef cattle veterinarians are being asked more frequently to not only
aid in the prevention of disease in the herds they service, but are also
being asked to assist in improvement of herd production and ultimately,
herd profitability. As our roles evolve, we must add these production
medicine and herd health services to our job description if we truly
want to assist the producer in growing a successful business. While
many veterinarians provide herd health services to their dairy, beef
feedlot and swine herds, doing so in a beef cow-calf herd is a relatively
new idea. We will explore not only how to develop this program in a
private practice, but also how to market these services to the benefit of
your clients.
Key words: beef production medicine, herd health, consultation
Herd Health Management and Epidemiology 149