A Dairy Herd Health and Productivity Service

Abstract

DECLARATION I declare that this thesis and the work presented herein was done entirely by myself unless otherwise indicated. Acknowledgements This work would not have been possible without the help and cooperation of a great many people. During my time in the Department of Veterinary Clinical Studies I was initially encouraged in the establishment of the Dairy Herd Health and Productivity Service by the late Professor Gordon Ferguson. During the past years the continuation and development of the service has always had the enthusiastic support of Professor Richard Halliwell and other colleagues.David Whitaker has been involved with me in operating the DHHPS over twenty years and I have been fortunate in having such a committed and enthusiastic colleague. Grateful thanks are also due to Alex Dowell who has been in charge of the laboratory analysis over the entire length of the project and has diligently overseen the introduction of new equipment, new assays and has supervised the quality control. He has been ably assisted by a number of technical staff over this period. Sandra Smith has been of invaluable help in providing assistance with the analysis, collation and presentation of a vast amount of data.I am grateful to Kath Tracey for assistance with the final typing of this thesis.Thanks are also due to many large animal veterinary practitioners who for many years have been staunch supporters of the project. I gratefully acknowledge our sponsors, initially Spillers Agriculure and then for the greater part of the time Dalgety Agriculture. Without their financial backing and the involvement of their nutritional advisers and other support staff the operation of the DHHPS would not have been possible.Most important of all the service could not have functioned without the key participants, the farmers, whose enthusiastic support I gratefully acknowledge.On a personal basis I would like to thank my late wife Elizabeth who was a constant source of inspiration and encouragement to me in all I attempted to achieve. ABSTRACT Herd health and reproduction have been ranked as top priorities for improving the future productivity and profitability of dairy enterprises. There is a multitude of genetic, disease, nutritional, management and physiological issues that can dramatically alter health and reproduction. It is generally agreed that a multidisciplinary approach is necessary if improvement is to be achieved. Herd health schemes have evolved in the dairy industry throughout the world but the uptake of such schemes in the UK has been low. The veterinary input to many dairy farms is at best routine fertility visits confined to examination of the reproductive tract, and at worst occasional emergency calls. The Dairy Herd Health and Productivity Service (DHHPS) was established to provide the opportunity for veterinary surgeons to lead a multidisciplinary team which can monitor health, fertility and production and can plan remedial action, when necessary. Over a period of twenty years it has continued to identify infertility, mas...

Biochemical and Haematological Values in Venous Blood of Farmed Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) at High Altitude

“…This analyte reflects the intake of effective rumen-degradable protein and its balance with fermentable metabolizable energy. Increased levels of blood serum urea may be associated with an excess of dietary protein, with deficiency of energy in the ration, with augmented catabolism of the animal or with prerenal, renal and postrenal azotemia (Kelly et al 1988;Seglar 1997, Meyer andHarvey 1998).…”

Disposal and disease rates in 340 British dairy herds

“…In the UK, there is little information which could be considered to be representative of the whole cattle population. Kossaibati and Esslemont (1997) have published information derived from 90 herds, and the authors have published information about the prevalence of lameness (Whitaker and others 1983), and hypomagnesaemia (Whitaker and Kelly 1982) and have described a dairy herd health and productivity service (Kelly and others 1988). More recently, the Dairy Herd Health and Productivity Service (DHHPS) has published disease rates in about 30, 000 cows (Anon 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994).…”

The Changing Pattern of Health Problems Since the Introduction of Mille Quotas

“…The DHHPS depends on close cooperation between farmer, his veterinary practitioner, nutritional adviser and laboratory based veterinary consultant. (5) As part of this programme a data sheet relating to health, fertility and general herd assessment is completed each month. A copy is left on the farm and further copies are sent to the nutritional adviser and to the DHHPS unit in Edinburgh where data is entered into a mini computer with a floppy disc storage system.…”

“…The Dairy Herd Health and Productivity Service (DHHPS) (5) which over the past 15 years has involved some 300 veterinary practices and over 1000 dairy farms throughout the UK has provided regular information on disease occurrence and on the adequacy of nutrition and management in relation to health and productivity.…”