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Herd testing provides cow production, milk fat and protein, milk solids and breeding, and production worth indices. Herd test information can also be used to separate infected from uninfected cows to help control the spread of contagious mastitis at milking time. Blanket dry cow therapy no longer refers to a process by which all cows get treated with an antibiotic. It now refers to which cows get treated with either antibiotics or teat sealants. It is unwise to leave a cow untreated with either a teat sealant or an antibiotic at dry off, because the risk of calving mastitis is increased greatly in these untreated

(unprotected) cows.

The herd test can also provide valuable historic individual cow data which can help predict the likelihood of cure following antibiotic treatments. It is very valuable in helping make the right culling decisions.

As part of our prescribing practices for dry cow therapy (which includes teat sealants), herd testing is extremely valuable to help make rational decisions that in the long run will save you a great deal of money and time.

Please consider herd testing as part of your herd management strategy this season.

IN THIS ISSUE

• Seen a Ghost? Dealing with Phantom Cows

• Improving Your Bull Management

• Interesting Results from On-Farm Mastitis Testing

• Meet our Tech Team

With a fairly rapid progression towards more rational dry cow antibiotic use, herd testing is becoming more important as a tool to decide which cows in the herd do not require antibiotics at dry off.

The Value of Herd Testing

November 2019

Dairy News

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Phantom cows are those cows that show heat, are mated and do not return to oestrus, but that are not pregnant. Phantom cows tend to occur more in cows that have been CIDR treated, that are underweight, and that have had some other adverse health event or are older cows.

Because phantoms make up part of the non-returning proportion of the herd, they get included in the non-return rate (NRR). In our experience, there can be as much as 10-20% of the non-returning portion of the herd that are not pregnant.

Phantom cows will eventually return to oestrus, but they may end up as either empty or very late calver’s (despite an early mating).

The ideal window for phantom scanning is from 35 days after the end of the first week of mating. This window may be longer if mating goes for more than 10 weeks. Cows are scanned in weekly batches so they will be either empty or between 35 and 42 days pregnant. All you have to do is identify (with tail paint) cows’ mated in each week of mating. During this time we can CIDR treat the empty phantoms - this will

help improve the calving pattern and reduce the overall empty rate.

There is another advantage of this early scanning if you are doing AB for an extended period or over the whole mating. In this case, we can identify the in-calf cows and focus heat detection efforts on the cows that are not yet pregnant thereby reducing heat detection fatigue and saving on heat detection aids.

For more information on phantoms and the risk for phantoms on your farm please call your local vet.

Seen a Ghost? Dealing with Phantom Cows

Herd reproductive performance, following 6 weeks of mating, is an indicator of bull performance. Based on your 6-week in-calf rate and the length of mating for your herd, you can work out expected not-in-calf rate using Table 1.

If last year’s empty rate was worse than you worked out from the table, it is time to review how you select and manage your bulls.

Consider the following:• Make sure you have

enough bulls. Table 2 works out how many bulls we need with the herd (if you are rotating bulls so you have half resting at any time you need twice this number on farm). This gives a ratio of one bull to 30

Improving Your Bull Management

How well did your bulls do last year? Is there room for improvement?

Table 1.

Table 2.

Continued on the next page...

not-in-calf cows. If you don’t have enough bulls and cannot obtain more, then consider doing AB for a longer period to get more cows in calf prior to natural mating.

• Ensure your bulls are sound – even if you don’t do a full soundness exam and semen evaluation, a lot is gained from having a good physical exam.

• Make sure bulls are in good condition, not lame, and have the right number of testicles (that is two) that are firm and of adequate size. It is also important they are tested and vaccinated for BVD.

• Let them settle in –

Give bulls a chance to settle in to their new surroundings. This includes new bulls they have not encountered before.Ideally a couple of weeks.

• Give them a break - Make sure that the bulls have enough rest – ideally on an ‘all in – all out’ rotation so that half the bulls are resting at any one time.

• Managing lameness - Monitor bulls for lameness each day. Remove lame bulls immediately and replace with healthy bulls. Infections, antibiotic treatment, and elevated temperatures effect sperm production

Early this season we installed Mastatest, an on-farm system for testing clinical mastitis samples, on four farms serviced by VetEnt Riverside. The system is simple to use, only taking minutes to load a sample and delivering results to the farmer and vet’s email within 24 hours.

The results so far have been interesting. Unsurprisingly, the main

bacteria identified was Strep uberis, but we also saw a wide range of other species.

As well as identifying the bacteria causing the mastitis, the Mastatest system determines the sensitivity of that bacteria to three different antibiotics and recommends the best treatment to give. The vast majority of cases were most sensitive to penicillin

and so Intracillin was the treatment of choice (note this will vary from farm to farm – especially where there is a higher incidence of Staph aureus).

The second most frequent treatment recommendation was to treat with anti-inflammatories without any antibiotics. These cases were either no growths or Coliform/Gram negative cases. Coliform mastitis tends to respond very poorly to the antibiotics that we use as our first choice. Fortunately, stripping cows out well and giving them anti-inflammatories is just as effective for mild Coliform mastitis as treating with antibiotics.

Improving Your Bull Management (continued)

On-Farm Mastitis Testing Provides Interesting Results

for 30+ days making them ineffective for the rest of mating. Do not allow bulls to enter the milking yard. Train bulls to remain in the paddock when cows are brought in. Identify bulls with reflective tape or some other means for easy location of bulls in the dark.

• Regularly observe bulls serving - Immediately remove bulls that are unable to serve properly and replace them with more capable bulls.

• Ensure bulls do not gain access to concentrate rations - This can disrupt rumen function, causing sickness and reduced fertility.

Recommended Treatments

Continued on the next page...

Our experienced team of five veterinary technicians are trained and supervised by our veterinarians, and perfectly complement your veterinary service.

Our techs are available to do a variety of services including:

• Painless disbudding and extra teat removal, (fully compliant with new regulations).

• Dehorning (fully compliant with new regulations).

• Teatsealing, with three teat seal trailers available.

• Dry cow therapy administration.

• Body condition scoring and reporting.

• Metrichecking/Metricuring.

• Blood testing.

• Heifer weighing (with a weigh trailer available)

and health product administration.

• Vaccinations during milking.

• Dairy reproduction programs, from start to finish.

• On-farm assistance to veterinarians.

Introducing our Canterbury Veterinary Tech Team

Seasonal Reminders ☐ Book in your BCs now for the new year – getting things right for next mating starts now!

☐ Be aware of the risk of coccidiosis for calves at weaning. Ensure calves have a coccidiostat in their feed and test if you suspect any issues.

☐ Ensure you have a good parasite management, vaccination and trace element supplementation plan in place for young stock – we are happy to help you with this, call into VetEnt Riverside and we can set you up with a young stock management calendar.

☐ Weighing calves is also very important to ensure they remain on track – talk to us about how we can help.

☐ Make sure everyone in your team knows how to handle, move, milk cows, and handle bulls to reduce the risk of lameness.

☐ Review milk quality - are you improving or getting worse compared to last season’s cell count and number of clinical mastitis cases?

☐ Consider early scanning to detect phantom cows (treated non-cyclers that go back into anoestrus after insemination) in time to do something with them.

☐ For people that are doing AB all the way through mating, early scanning can help identify the cows that are in calf so they can be excluded from the last round of mating – this helps save on consumables and cost as well as making the task of heat detection easier.

Recent trials in Canterbury have shown that using the Mastatest system reduced antibiotic use by 24%. Being able to identify cows

that do not need antibiotics is a more responsible use of antibiotics and reduces treatment cost, so it is a win-win! For more

information ask one of our vets or visit mastaplex.com

On-Farm Mastitis Testing (continued)

Marcus Taylor,Veterinarian

Meet VetEnt Lincoln, Leeston, and Darfield’s New Vet

Rock-climbing, surfing, jiu-jitzu, playing the guitar and traveling… These are a few of my favourite things! When I’m not extracting the slimy spring glories from their mammas, chasing alpacas and trimming curly toe nails; you’ll find me doing social work in Brazil, swinging from a tree, purple faced trying to escape a rear

naked choke or playing with my cute nieces at Sumner beach. I’ve loved animals since I could reach a chubby arm out and grab my obliging cat’s tail and the late Steve Irwin has always been a great role model of mine. This is because of his passion and great heart for animals. Catch you in the race Jase!

We welcome Marcus to the team covering our Lincoln, Leeston and Darfield clinics.

Canterbury

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Proudly available from your local veterinary clinic. Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health New Zealand Limited. Level 3, 2 Osterley Way, Manukau, Auckland, New Zealand | CYRAZIN® and MATRIX®, FIRST®, ECLIPSE® are registered trademarks of the Boehringer Ingelheim Group. Registered pursuant to the ACVM Act 1997 | No’s A011065, A009270, A011151, A010120, A009390, A006859. A007508, A007509, A010635 | ©Copyright 2019 Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health New Zealand Limited. All rights reserved.

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