Using Activity and Milk Yield as Predictors of Fresh Cow Disorders

Abstract

The objective was to determine whether daily walking activity and milk yields could be used as predictors of metabolic and digestive disorders early in lactation. Data were collected from 1996 through 1999 from 1445 dairy cows in 3 Florida herds. Walking activity, milk yield, and other measures were collected from a computerized dairy management system. Mixed models analysis was used for data on cows before their first detected estrus, as identified by difference in activity. Healthy cows were defined as those without any metabolic or digestive disorder during the prebreeding stage, whereas a sick cow had an occurrence of those disorders at any time during the prebreeding stage. Metabolic disorders were ketosis, retained placenta, and milk fever. Digestive disorders included displaced abomasum, indigestion, reduced feed intake, traumatic gastritis, acidosis, and bloat. Data from cows with known cases of ketosis, left displaced abomasum, and digestive disorders were analyzed to determine changes in activity and milk yield before those specific disorders were clinically diagnosed. Although walking activity was generally lower among sick cows, cows with ketosis, left displaced abomasum, and digestive disorders had higher than average activity 8, 9, and 8 d, respectively, before each diagnosed disorder. Daily milk yields of sick cows were approximately 15 kg/d less than milk yields of healthy cows. Milk yields were lower by 6, 7, and 5 d, respectively, before diagnoses of ketosis, left displaced abomasum, and digestive disorders. Cows with ketosis, left displaced abomasum, and general digestive disorders could possibly be detected about 5 to 6 d earlier than clinical diagnoses based on changes in daily walking activity and milk yield.

Monitoring Metabolic Health of Dairy Cattle in the Transition Period

“…weather, changes in diet, movement of cattle to new groups, etc). However, decreased milk production often precedes clinical disease, and daily yield coupled with activity monitoring may be useful for screening of cows for earlier disease detection [33]. Trends in projected production from early lactation provide herdlevel information on the success of transition into lactation [30].…”

Invited review: Sensors to support health management on dairy farms

“…So, although specificity is 95% and the test scale was large, with 217 farms included in the study, this sensor system had limitations. All reviewed articles involved testing on a single farm and often included a small number of cows, except for one study that was conducted on multiple farms (Edwards and Tozer, 2004).…”

A decision-tree model to detect post-calving diseases based on rumination, activity, milk yield, BW and voluntary visits to the milking robot

“…Health problems are associated with reductions in activity (Edwards and Tozer, 2004;Walker et al, 2008;Chapinal et al, 2010), rumination (Hansen et al, 2003;DeVries et al, 2009), milk yield (Fourichon et al, 1999;Rajala-Schultz et al, 1999) and BW (Maltz, 1997). Therefore, incorporating these available sensors to detect the activity reduction that is indicative of disease is advised.…”

“…Ketosis and metritis are common in dairy cows in early lactation (Bar and Ezra, 2005), and are associated with decreased milk yield (Fourichon et al, 1999;Edwards and Tozer, 2004;Huzzey et al, 2007), decreased reproductive performance (Opsomer et al, 2000;Walsh et al, 2007) and increased culling rate (Dubuc et al, 2011).…”