Economic Characters in Dairy Cattle Culling and Care of Sick animals

Economic Characters in Dairy Cattle Culling and Care of Sick animals Dr. R. Jayashree Veterinary College, Shimoga

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Lactation yield Lactation period Persistency of yield Age at first calving Service period Dry period Inter calving period Reproductive efficiency Efficiency of feed utilization Disease resistance.

CULLING OF DAIRY ANIMALS • Culling is elimination or weeding out of undesirable animals. • Reasons of uneconomic, poor production, or very poor reproductive ability, with sterility problems and breeding, irregularities, very poor conditions, stunted growth, suffering from incurable illness, or disease animals

Undesirable breed characters present in young animal.

• When the herd is a pure bred herd leading to disqualifications family lines, • Exhibiting heritable characters like supernumerary teats, • Loose horns in cows of certain breeds

Decision on culling for poor production • For poor production, the entire lactation at yield is considered and preferably first two lactations are observed and if the lactation yield is less than what is expected from the breed or herd • Very old animals are culled, as their maintenance will be uneconomical

• Male animals or other animals surplus in the farm or not useful in the farm and they are culled. • Calves born with congenital defects like congenital fibrosis of the eye, total blindness or some other defects are included in the culling. • Calves born much below the normal birth weight are included in the culling.

DAIRY FARM RECORD KEEPING

DISEASE MANAGEMENT • Isolation of sick animals from the herd.

• Diagnosing the disease by proper methods.

• Vaccination of the in contact animals with the appropriate vaccine.

• Prompt treatment of affected animals.

• Proper disposal of bedding and carcasses.

• Preventing movement of animals and human beings.

• Providing foot baths with disinfectants like at the entry points of the farm.

CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF SICK ANIMALS • Sick animals are to be isolated from rest of the herd and kept in sick wards and managed separately.

• Proper bedding is to be provided in the sick animal wards.

• Change of bedding as frequently as possible

• Providing palatable feed and succulent fodder to the animals.

• Clean water must be available all the time.

• Chronic ailing animals with bed sores are to be properly treated with appropriate dressing.

• Preventing crow and fly problems to the extent possible