Health Of Cows Vital During Calving Season

In the life of a dairy cow, there’s no more important time than calving, and the transition from the dry cow group into the milking line.  Research has shown that a cow’s immune system around calving time can be impaired, and proper management ensures peak performance in the critical weeks and months ahead.

“They are very susceptible to new infections in the mammary glands, very immune suppressed and develop clinical mastitis because of that immune impairment" said Marcus Kehrli with the National Animal Disease Center.  "It’s also a difficult time for the cow because there’s a lot of metabolic diseases that she may be experiencing.  So if we better manage the nutrition and the immune functional status we should be able to dramatically be able to improve the health of the cows and make them more profitable and make them make more milk.”

In the late 1980s, the National Animal Disease Center, operated by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, started looking at ways restore the immune system back to a normal, functional level for transition cows.  Today, there is a FDA-approved product that evolved with help from their findings.

“The entire product is an immune restorative that reduces the cases of mastitis in cows during the first 30 days of milk, making them healthier.  If you have fewer mastitis, you’ll use fewer antibiotics and fewer cows in the sick pen.  It’s a good way to keep your cows healthy and keep them productive.”

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