Milk fever and its economical impacts in dairy cattle production (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject Agrarian Studies, Wollega University (Animal Science), language: English, abstract: This paper analyses how milk fever impacts the dairy cattle production.

Production diseases are those diseases induced by management practices where high producing dairy cows fail in metabolic imbalances. Milk fever (parturient paresis) is an important production disease of dairy cows around periparturient period. Because of the high volume of milk produced during this time and a subsequent increased demand for calcium, these cows often develop milk fever (hypocalcaemia), abnormally low levels of calcium in the blood.

Since calcium is required for the release of acetylcholine at the neuromuscular junction, affected animals will begin to experience muscle weakness. The clinical symptoms of milk fever include inappetence, tetany, low body temperature, paresis, lateral recumbency, and eventually coma and death if left untreated. Milk fever is sporadic but on individual farms the incidence may be high among susceptible cows. High producing dairy cows are the most susceptible to milk fever during the periparturient period. Several factors have been consistently associated with increased incidence of milk fever. These include parturition and initiation of lactation, advanced age, breed, and diet.

Cows with serum calcium lower than 7.5 mg/dL are as considered as hypocalcaemic. Parturient paresis is treated intravenously with calcium borogluconate. Affected cows have an excellent prognosis if treated early and properly. Economic losses due to milk fever include losses from deaths, premature culling, treatment costs and decreased milk production in the subsequent lactation. Therefore milk fever management is economically most important, as it results in not only reduction in milk production, but also loss of animals. Multiple strategies have been utilized to prevent hypocalcemia. Furthermore; as the dairy profitability is determined by the biological cycles of milk production and reproduction, emphasis should be given to the nutritional management of dairy cows in both dry and periparturient periods.