Herd health and comprehensive preventive medicine were notified since the last half of 20th century, as the farmers were better educated and the value of individual animals relative to veterinary fees has decreased. Restricted attention had been given to the above idea More
Herd health and comprehensive preventive medicine were notified since the last half of 20th century, as the farmers were better educated and the value of individual animals relative to veterinary fees has decreased. Restricted attention had been given to the above idea leads to misunderstanding of infectious and non-infectious diseases. Currently, veterinarians must support herd health programs designed to increase production by preventing disease, rather than just dispensing traditional treatment to clinically sick animals. Lameness as one of the costliest disorders in dairy herds, needs special attention. Both preventive costs (such as hoof trimming costs) and the losses due to heifer replacements and milk yield reduction should be counted as the economic losses of a disease. Indeed, local data play an important role in estimating lameness losses. Calculating measures of morbidity is a key point that helps the veterinarian and the farmer to know about the farm condition. So, in this article the economic importance of lameness and the concept of prevalence and incidence of it were reviewed. At the end there are some information about the prevalence and incidence of lameness in Iran and some other countries.
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As the number of large-scale dairy farms increase dairy cow welfare has become a hot topic in recent years. This growing interest in animal welfare has motivated legislators to set new rules. The most important concerns regarding dairy cow welfare include whether the da More
As the number of large-scale dairy farms increase dairy cow welfare has become a hot topic in recent years. This growing interest in animal welfare has motivated legislators to set new rules. The most important concerns regarding dairy cow welfare include whether the dairy cow is feeling well, functioning well, and performing natural behavior. Cow behavior and comfort level have a direct relationship with her production and health and cow comfort is one of the most important factors affecting the profitability of dairy farms due to its association with premature slaughter, survival of cows and reproductive life (number of complete lactations before slaughter). In this paper, we explained the concept of comfort in dairy cattle and its risk factors such as stall design, floor type, density, lameness and heat stress. Then the measures of cow comfort are introduced and the management considerations related to cattle comfort are discussed.
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