Managing sick cows

Managing sick cows 

The sooner you spot and treat sick and lame cows, the better. This is your responsibility under the Animal Welfare Act and will make issues easier to resolve while protecting other cows from infection.

Because it’s illegal to milk sick cows for food in New Zealand, managing animal health will also help protect your production.

That takes good systems and record-keeping, with staff trained to spot the early signs of disease.

Read more to learn how to identify, separate and care for sick and problem cows, about marking and recording systems, and the most common cow diseases. 

Farm systems that protect animal health

Good farm systems and adequate training will help keep your herd healthier.

Excellent milking hygiene includes disinfecting teats and keeping your milking machines well-maintained. It’s also important to look at how you manage drying-off while recording and monitoring infected animals and bulk milk somatic cell count (SCC).

Talk to your vet about a herd health management plan and best practice for preventing and managing diseases. You must also keep up with your annual Prescription Animal Remedies vet consultation.

Identifying, marking and separating sick cows

You’ll need to actively observe animals, then separate, mark and record any that show signs of health issues. It’s important to train your farm staff in ‘cow signals’ that may indicate early signs of lameness, teat damage and mastitis. Your vet may be able to offer training and resources to spot signs such as:

• Dull coat
• Dull or sunken eyes
• Arched back
• Sunken flanks
• Rapid weight loss
• Droopy ears
• Lowered head

Marking cows

Marking shows milkers’ cows that need to be treated or kept separate. Choose the right marking system for the issue, with more permanent methods for slow milkers and three titters, and less permanent for conditions that will clear up quickly. It’s a good idea to use two systems as backup and to identify specific areas on the cow – if the problem is in one quarter, mark that area. You should also permanently mark any cows prone to mastitis so you can check them more frequently. If you need to mark cows for other reasons – to indicate colostrum cows, for example – make sure it’s easy to tell them apart from sick or treated cows.

In rotary dairies, ear tags are not always easily visible, so numbering the bails will help communication between milkers.

Separating sick and treated cows

Keep sick and treated cows in a secure paddock, with a water trough away from the main race. Avoid walking the main herd past the separated cows before milking and wait until they’ve left before the treated cows enter the platform. This will minimise the chance of contact and let you check that you’ve milked each cow.

If separating sick cows isn’t practical, milk them last, after you’ve disconnected the delivery line into the vat.  

Health record-keeping

Keeping accurate records of animal health issues is required by the New Zealand Food Safety Authority. It also makes it easier to avoid and manage outbreaks, identify cows for culling, design prevention programmes and update your vet. You can use it to spot worrying trends, like lameness going up, in-calf rates going down or an increase in herd somatic cell count (bulk SCC).

You’ll need a permanent record of health issues and an area in the dairy where milkers can easily see a list of problem cows. You should note the:

• Milking animal number
• Condition and cause, if known
• Veterinarian, if consulted
• Type and dates of treatments, including doses
• Date milk re-entered the bulk milk tank