Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Dairy herd health is an important and universal topic in large animal veterinary practice and farming, covering both preventive medicine and health promotion. With the move towards large-scale farming, the health of the herd is important as an economic unit and to promote the health of the individuals within it. This book focuses on diseases within herds, herd husbandry practices, youngstock management and environmental issues. Major diseases and conditions are covered, including mastitis, lameness, nutrition, metabolic and common infectious diseases from a herd health perspective. It is an essential resource for veterinary practitioners and students, researchers and dairy industry personnel.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface (p. xiii)
• 1 Concepts in Dairy Herd Health (p. 1)
• Context of Dairy Herd Health: Why Improve the Health of Farmed Livestock? (p. 1)
• What is Herd Health? (p. 2)
• Practical Implementation of Herd Health: Getting Started and Structuring the Health Visits (p. 3)
• Appreciating client aspirations (p. 3)
• Establishing farm-specific goals (p. 4)
• Measuring performance and setting targets: the importance of data recording and analysis (p. 5)
• Structure of the herd health visit (p. 5)
• Charging for herd health (p. 6)
• Other Factors to Consider for Successful Implementation of a Herd Health Programme (p. 6)
• Training of farm staff (p. 6)
• The cow's environment (p. 7)
• Relevance of genetics in herd health (p. 8)
• Conclusion (p. 9)
• References and Further Reading (p. 9)
• 2 Facilitating Change in Herd Health (p. 11)
• Introduction (p. 11)
• Encouraging farmers to take action: context and challenges (p. 11)
• To Change Human Behaviour, We Need First to Understand It (p. 12)
• Selfish human behaviour research applied to herd health (p. 13)
• How to Assist Farmers in Implementing Changes on the Farm (p. 15)
• First identify which stage the farmer has reached (p. 16)
• Stage I: moving from no intentions ... to wanting to change (p. 17)
• Stage II: the giant leap from wanting ... to doing (p. 25)
• Stage III: keeping up the good work (p. 28)
• A final reflection (p. 29)
• Facilitating Change: Evidence-based Veterinary Medicine (p. 29)
• What is evidence-based medicine? (p. 30)
• Conclusion: Facilitating Changes in Dairy Herd Health (p. 32)
• References and Further Reading (p. 32)
• 3 Restoring the Dairy Herd: Rearing Youngstock and Replacing Cows (p. 35)
• Introduction (p. 35)
• Dynamics of the dairy herd structure: culling and replacements (p. 35)
• Mortality and disease in youngstock (p. 36)
• Culling of adult cows (p. 38)
• Financial costs associated with culling of cows (p. 40)
• Welfare considerations of youngstock rearing (p. 40)
• Monitoring Youngstock Health (p. 42)
• Monitoring the neonatal period (including calving) (p. 42)
• Monitoring the pre-weaning period (p. 42)
• Monitoring the post-weaning period (p. 44)
• Monitoring first calving and lactation (p. 46)
• Monitoring culling in the adult herd (p. 47)
• Targets for Youngstock Rearing and Dairy Cow Culling (p. 48)
• Targets for the neonatal period (including calving) (p. 48)
• Targets for the pre-weaning period (p. 49)
• Targets for the post-weaning period (p. 49)
• Targets for first calving (p. 49)
• Targets for monitoring culled cows (p. 49)
• Disease Control in the Rearing Period (p. 50)
• Disease control in the neonatal period (including calving) (p. 52)
• Disease control in the pre-weaning period (p. 56)
• Disease control and fertility management in the post-weaning period (p. 60)
• Summary (p. 66)
• References and Further Reading (p. 67)
• 4 Managing Herd Reproduction (p. 73)
• Introduction (p. 73)
• The economics of fertility (p. 73)
• Current levels of reproductive performance (p. 74)
• Welfare and ethics of reproductive herd health (p. 76)
• Public health and reproduction (p. 77)
• Underlying Principles of Dairy Cow Reproduction (p. 78)
• Reproductive physiology and hormonal control of the oestrous cycle (p. 78)
• Monitoring Reproduction in Herd Health (p. 78)
• The practicalities of data recording (p. 78)
• Monitoring reproductive data on the farm (p. 80)
• Routine performance monitoring (p. 82)
• Summary of key targets (p. 90)
• Control of Herd Fertility: Enhancing Reproductive Performance (p. 92)
• Improving accuracy and rate of oestrus detection (p. 93)
• Improving pregnancy rates (p. 100)
• Controlling reproductive disease (p. 106)
• Conclusion (p. 110)
• References and Further Reading (p. 111)
• 5 Control of Mastitis and Enhancement of Milk Quality (p. 117)
• Introduction (p. 117)
• An international perspective on mastitis and milk production (p. 117)
• The economics of bovine mastitis (p. 121)
• Welfare implications of bovine mastitis (p. 123)
• The public health implications and perception of bovine milk (p. 123)
• Underlying Principles of Disease (p. 125)
• Anatomy and physiology (p. 125)
• Host immune defence (p. 125)
• Genetic susceptibility of the host (p. 129)
• Pathogens and their behaviour (p. 129)
• Major versus minor pathogens (p. 131)
• Mastitis Diagnostics (p. 133)
• Detection or diagnosis (p. 133)
• Mastitis detection (p. 133)
• Somatic cell counting (p. 134)
• Mastitis diagnosis (p. 135)
• Selecting a diagnostic technique (p. 136)
• Monitoring and Analysis of Mastitis Data (p. 139)
• Monitoring and interpreting somatic cell count data (p. 140)
• Monitoring and interpreting clinical mastitis data (p. 145)
• Summary of monitoring (p. 147)
• Control of Mastitis (p. 147)
• Principles of control (p. 147)
• Action and reaction (p. 150)
• National control schemes (p. 151)
• Contagious mastitis control (p. 151)
• Environmental mastitis control (p. 156)
• Managing the milk-harvesting process (p. 160)
• Biosecurity (p. 162)
• The role of the heifer in mastitis control (p. 163)
• Conclusions (p. 164)
• References and Further Reading (p. 164)
• 6 Control of Lameness (p. 169)
• Introduction (p. 169)
• Healthy feet and normal locomotion (p. 169)
• Definition of lameness (p. 170)
• Incidence and prevalence of lameness (p. 170)
• The impact of lameness (p. 170)
• Heritability of lameness (p. 171)
• Causes of foot lameness (p. 172)
• Farmer attitudes to lameness (p. 172)
• Evaluating and Monitoring Lameness (p. 174)
• The importance of good farm records (p. 174)
• Setting up a locomotion scoring system on the farm (p. 175)
• Recognizing foot lesions (p. 177)
• Methods of recording locomotion and lesions (p. 177)
• Practical use of lameness data (p. 178)
• Lameness targets (p. 181)
• The future of monitoring lameness in dairy herds (p. 182)
• Summary (p. 183)
• Control of Lameness (p. 183)
• Treatment of clinical cases (p. 185)
• Routine foot trimming (p. 187)
• Foot bathing and disinfection (p. 188)
• Management of cow groups and movements (p. 190)
• Lying time and cubicle comfort (p. 192)
• Standing times and concrete surfaces (p. 193)
• Cleanliness and slurry management (p. 196)
• Tracks and walkways (p. 197)
• Nutrition (p. 198)
• Biosecurity (p. 199)
• Conclusions (p. 199)
• References and Further Reading (p. 200)
• 7 Control of Infectious Disease (p. 205)
• Introduction (p. 205)
• Principles of infectious disease control (p. 205)
• Introduction of a new pathogen (p. 205)
• Spread of a new pathogen within a herd (p. 206)
• Persistence of a pathogen within a herd (p. 206)
• The spread of infectious diseases between herds (p. 207)
• Principles of Infectious Disease Control (p. 207)
• Elimination of a disease from a herd (p. 207)
• Control of a disease in a herd (p. 208)
• Diagnostic Tests (p. 209)
• Test sensitivity and specificity (p. 209)
• Predictive value of a test (p. 211)
• Estimating the presence and prevalence of disease (p. 211)
• Monitoring Infectious Disease (p. 212)
• Control of Infectious Disease: General Concepts (p. 214)
• Biosecurity in dairy herds (p. 214)
• Practical Implementation of Infectious Disease Control: Disease Examples (p. 215)
• Control or eradication? (p. 215)
• Evaluating herd infection status (p. 220)
• Avoiding introduction or reintroduction of a pathogen (p. 222)
• Preventing spread and persistence of a pathogen within a herd (p. 222)
• Conclusions (p. 223)
• References and Further Reading (p. 224)
• 8 Nutritional Management of Herd Health (p. 227)
• Introduction: The Role of Nutrition in Dairy Herd Health and Production (p. 227)
• Background: Key Concepts (p. 228)
• The role of glucose in cow metabolism (p. 228)
• The pivotal role of the liver in adaptation to NEB (p. 229)
• Inappropriate metabolic responses of cows in NEB (p. 229)
• Protein metabolism (p. 230)
• Trace elements and vitamins (p. 231)
• Monitoring of Nutritional Management, Including Herd Targets (p. 231)
• Assessment of the records (p. 231)
• Monitoring nutrition: assessment of the cow (p. 240)
• Monitoring metabolic markers (p. 246)
• Monitoring of nutrition: assessments of feeding (p. 249)
• Monitoring feeding: forages (p. 257)
• Key Concepts in Formulation (p. 265)
• Control of Major Nutrition-related Disease (p. 265)
• Nutritional control of hypocalcaemia (p. 268)
• Nutritional control of fatty liver and ketosis (p. 270)
• Nutritional control of displaced abomasum (p. 271)
• Nutritional control of subacute ruminal acidosis (p. 272)
• Summary (p. 274)
• Acknowledgements (p. 274)
• References and Further Reading (p. 274)
• 9 Dairy Farming, Food Security and Environmental Issues (p. 279)
• Introduction (p. 279)
• Background: Food Security, Energy Security and Climate Change (p. 279)
• Food security (p. 280)
• Energy security (p. 282)
• Environmental Issues: Significance for the Dairy Industry (p. 283)
• Impacts of dairy farming on the atmosphere and climate change (p. 284)
• Impacts of dairy farming on water (p. 286)
• Impacts of dairy farming on biodiversity and local ecology (p. 287)
• Promoting and enforcing environment protection (p. 289)
• Reducing the Impact of Dairy Farming on the Environment (p. 289)
• The influence of increased efficiency and improved health and reproduction (p. 289)
• Conclusion: Dairy Farming and the Environment (p. 293)
• References and Further Reading (p. 293)
• Appendix 1 Sample Sizes and Disease Prevalence Estimates (p. 297)
• Sample Size Estimates (p. 297)
• Estimating Disease Prevalence from Test Results (p. 298)
• Appendix 2 Genetics and Herd Health (p. 301)
• Introduction (p. 301)
• Genetic Indices (p. 301)
• UK indices (p. 302)
• Production traits (p. 302)
• Genetic indices outside the UK (p. 303)
• Reliability of genetic indices (p. 303)
• Heritability (p. 303)
• Genetic defects (p. 303)
• Reference (p. 304)
• Index (p. 305)