The Relationship Between Disease Occurrence, Feeding Management and Return Over Feed in Ontario Dairy Herds
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21423/aabppro20044977Keywords:
management, production-limiting disease, milk production, herd economic, Return over Feed IndexAbstract
On a worldwide basis, dairy industries of most countries are becoming increasingly concerned with factors that impact return on investment. Historically, research has focused on the relationship between management, production-limiting disease and milk production. However, few studies have quantified their association with herd economics.
The objectives of this research are to examine the relationship between profitability as measured by the Ontario Dairy Herd Improvement (DHI) Corporation's Return over Feed (ROF) index, and herd characteristics such as milk production, somatic cell count linear score and health management practices. The ROF index will also be used to assess on-farm health and disease information that includes lameness, clinical ketosis, clinical mastitis, retained placenta (RP), displaced abomasum (DA), milk fever, monensin use and ration particle size. Herd level incidence risks for subclinical ketosis and subclinical mastitis will be evaluated by using the California Mastitis Test and the KetoTestO ketone test in early postpartum cows. Subsequently, the associations between the risk of disease, management factors and ROF will be determined.
