Vet Niamh Field joins Emma-Louise Coffey to take a look at the health status of the national dairy herd and gives key tips to maximise the health of your herd.
 
Niamh looks to the metabolic diseases that occur on dairy farms, commonly occurring during the spring and she emphasises the importance of dry cow management to prevent incidence of disease. 
 
Management steps include optimum BCS at dry off (2.75 to 3.25) and BCS at calving (3.00 to 3.50) and good dry cow minerals with Magnesium inclusion of 20g per day.
 
Niamh explains there is a multidimensional approach to herds protecting themselves against infectious diseases. These include immunity, the cows environment and exposure to disease.
One of the most important steps to maintaining a health, disease-free herd is biosecurity.
 
Beyond this, disease screening such as bulk milk sampling and blood sampling will identify the prevalence of individual diseases. Vaccinations can be affective to control or eliminate disease.
 
For more information:
https://www.teagasc.ie/media/website/publications/2019/19.-Vaccination-Calendar.pdf
https://www.teagasc.ie/media/website/staff-directory/animals/dairy/HerdHealth.pdf
 
For more episodes and information from the Dairy Edge podcast go to:
 https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/