HERD HEALTH

Mastitis is an inflammatory disease of the mammary gland that impacts all food production animals reared for milk harvest, but is well documented as the most widespread and costly animal health problem in dairy cows.

In a consumer-driven market like the dairy industry, the demand for high-quality milk is sought after more than ever. Consumers want to be confident in the dairy products they are purchasing, and producers are cognizant of that.

Since I graduated from veterinary school almost 30 years ago, there have been big shifts in the types of mastitis found on farms. We used to mostly deal with contagious mastitis cases, which we’ve done a good job of managing.

At its best, the process of ensiling should retain as much valuable nutrients and dry matter (DM) from the original forage crop as possible. Once the crop is chopped, that’s as good as the silage quality will ever get.

Salmonellosis has the unenviable distinction of being one of the most common causes of foodborne illness and zoonotic disease in Canada.

Bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) is the cause of the infectious disease bovine viral diarrhea (BVD). BVDV is endemic in North America and its seroprevalence at the herd level has been estimated between 35.5% and 56.7% in non-vaccinated cattle in Canada (at least one animal with a titer of 1:64 or greater).