Leverbot in kaart gebracht

Dairy cows grazing outside, or fed indoors with fresh grass, are increasingly infected by liver fluke, a parasitic flatworm. Losses resulting from liver fluke disease are generally underestimated, but include growth retardation, reduced resistance, lower milk production, and rejection of infected livers at the slaughterhouse

Onderzoek naar leverbot deel I: Instrument voor bedrijfsanalyse op risicofactoren - leverbotbestrijding, risico's & kansen

Liver fluke infections are increasingly a bottleneck in the animal health of grazing (or fresh grass fed) ruminants. Liverfluke leads to disease with economic consequences and for lactating animals no anthelmintics are freely available. This project has been working on the development of the liver fluke instrument with the aim of providing dairy farmers insight and action perspective regarding the liverfluke situation on their farm

Onderzoek naar leverbot deel I: Instrument voor bedrijfsanalyse op risicofactoren - leverbotbestrijding, risico's & kansen

Liver fluke infections are increasingly a bottleneck in the animal health of grazing (or fresh grass fed) ruminants. Liverfluke leads to disease with economic consequences and for lactating animals no anthelmintics are freely available. This project has been working on the development of the liver fluke instrument with the aim of providing dairy farmers insight and action perspective regarding the liverfluke situation on their farm

Wat zijn de mogelijkheden om een leverbotinfectie van melkvee te voorkomen?

Infecties met leverbot zijn in toenemende mate een knelpunt in de diergezondheid van grazende (of vers gras gevoerde) herkauwers. Leverbotinfectie leidt tot ziekte met economische gevolgen en voor melkgevende dieren zijn geen anthelmintica vrij beschikbaar. In dit project is het leverbotinstrument ontwikkeld met als doel om veehouders inzicht en handelingsperspectief te geven ten aanzien van de leverbotsituatie op hun bedrijf. In dit rapport worden de resultaten weergegeven van het leverbotinstrument en een drietal preventieve maatregelen die zijn uitgeprobeerd

Calves with their dams in dairy cow systems

Conclusions and future perspectives: Interviews and on-farm studies across The Netherlands, France, Norway and Denmark showed that dam-rearing is practiced in a wealth of different systems, and four main angles should be considered when organizing a dam-calf contact system to fit the context and work well: calf, cow, farmers and farming system. Dam-calf contact systems can be seen as contributing significantly to the physiology and natural behavior of calves as well as of mother cows. Three important qualities in dam-calf contact systems were described from animals’ perspective: 1) nutrition, 2) care, and 3) learning. The priorities and perceptions of the importance of these three qualities influenced very much the farmers’ choices and priorities of systems. A focus on nutrition could for example motivate the choice of part time systems and strongly restricted systems (e.g. two times two hours daily access to each other), whereas a focus on care and learning would motivate a more full-time access system. Some perceived the calves to be equipped with capacities and skills through learning from the dam and others in the system, adding to their life opportunities, and they would favor a system where mother cow and calf were together with as little restriction as possible, although such systems require major efforts to organize and keep the overview. Farmers, who were introduced to dam-calf contact systems, but without having prior experience of these systems, pointed to the need for developing systems, which were much more ‘friendly’ to both cows and calves than what they saw. That is, develop dairy systems, which allowed cows and calves to be together, and the calves to learn about life in a dairy herd (e.g. indoor and outdoor life, and eating solid feed and grass), and with minimum risk. Among some interviewed actors, the needs of the calf seemed to be more in focus and of higher priority than the natural needs and the motivation of the mother cow. This is clear when talking about foster cow systems (where the mother cow is separated early after calving from her calf), but also when talking about dam-calf contact systems, many seemed to focus most on the benefits of the calf, although many noticed that the mother cow often reacted strongly to the separation and showed much distress. Seen from the farmers’ points of view, it was remarkable that most farmers, who had dam-calf contact systems, were mainly driven by the pleasure of seeing it work, and seeing the interaction between calves and cows. They articulated how they were touched and impressed e.g. by the mother cow’s consistent ‘watching over’ her calf, and the pain of separation. A number of the farmers had never been motivated by premium price or consumer demands, but just did it because they found it right, or ‘easier’ in combination that it brought them other qualities being farmers. Farmers, who were confronted with dam rearing systems for the first time in their lives, pointed to the necessity of finding a balance between ‘trusting the animals’ (because they could clearly see that the calves found their way), and ‘being in control’, because they used to know exactly how much milk the calves were drinking on daily basis. This points to the need for the humans in the system to redirect efforts and focus when observing animals, and when spending their time with cows and calves. There was a repeated questioning of ‘naturalness’ in relation to dam-rearing. Whilst acknowledging that mother cows and calves were strongly motivated and it was ‘natural’ for them to be together, some farmers also pointed to factors which partly made it ‘unnatural’ for them. This was especially the very high milk yields of dairy cows, which could lead to overdrinking for the calf, or deep udders, which made it difficult to drink for the calf, or the fact that daily life in a large dairy herd might not give a newborn calf sufficient peace to rest. Some issues remained unsolved at the current moment, and they need future solutions. One is the difference in many herds between ‘calves to stay in the herd’ versus ‘calves to leave the herds’ and not least their mothers, which had to go through early and abrupt separation. Another aspect is whether it is best to aim at farming systems in which the calf can find its mother, or the mother find her calf, or how they both have more or less unrestricted access to each other, but then with no opportunity to seek peace in a calf hide

Cow calf contact in dairy herds viewed from the perspectives of calves, cows, humans and the farming system. Farmers’ perceptions and experiences related to dam-rearing systems

A common practice in dairy farming is to remove the calf from its mother a few hours after birth. The public debate on the subject has increased, and views on whether the calf should be allowed to stay with its dam for weeks are debated among citizens, farmers, and advisors. The aim of this article is to present, analyse, and discuss experiences and arguments on dam-rearing of calves through interviews with actors, primarily farmers, involved in organic dairy farming in four European countries. The interviews showed that dam-rearing is practiced in a wealth of different systems, and four main points of view should be considered: that of the calf, the cow, the farmer, and the farming system. Three important qualities of cow calf contact systems are described from the animals’ perspective: 1) nutrition, 2) care, and 3) learning. The discussion included ethical considerations referring to the principle of fairness as expressed by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM). Wellbalanced and managed dam-rearing systems are suggested to contribute significantly to the physiological development and natural behaviour of mother cows and calves. The calves obtain capacities and skills through learning from the dam and others in the system. Major efforts are required when organising suitable calf- and cow-friendly dam-rearing systems, and farmer observations must be more careful because they take place in a group and therefore need to account for complex situations. In doing this, the farmer shows animals respect, and treats them justly as part of the ethical alliance between animals and humans cohabiting on a farm. Farmers’ trust in the capabilities of the animals – such as the cow’s ability to look after the calf and the calf’s capability to live in a complex dairy system – seems to partly break with some of the animal husbandry qualities that are often considered important when taking care of cows and calves in a system with early separation. “Being in control” in new ways than previously was identified as a key for human learning in these systems as a part of the shifting focus when observing animals and spending time with cows and calves differently. In a cow calf contact system, the humans need relies to a higher degree on being able to observe and judge a complex situation than, for example, on giving the calves exactly the same amount of milk of a specific temperature at the same times every day

Comparing gradual debonding strategies after prolonged cow-calf contact: Stress responses, performance, and health of dairy cow and calf

We assessed effects of two-step debonding strategies in calf rearing systems with different types of prolonged cow-calf contact (CCC) on stress responses, health and performance of dairy cows and calves. Forty-eight Holstein Friesian cow-calf pairs had either: 1) full contact including suckling, where contact was reduced before weaning via fence-line separation at day 49 (FC-FS) (n = 10); 2) full contact, where contact was reduced at day 56 by fitting calves with a nose-flap (FC-NF) (n = 10); 3) partial contact (calves were housed in a pen adjacent to the cow area allowing physical contact on initiative of the dam but no suckling), where contact was reduced before weaning by moving the calf box from the wall to prevent physical contact at day 49 (PC-BW) (n = 6); 4) partial contact, where contact was reduced the week after weaning by moving the calf box away from the wall at day 63 (PC-AW) (n = 12); 5) no contact (calves were removed from dam directly after birth and housed in a calf barn), calves were weaned at day 56 (NC) (n = 10). Between weeks 7–10, we assessed physiological stress parameters, weight gain, and the health status of calves, plus general activity patterns based on accelerometer sensor data of cow-calf pairs before, during and after the debonding interventions. Additionally, calves were subjected to four consecutive behavioural tests (i.e. open field, novel object, voluntary human approach and involuntary human approach test) prior to permanent separation at day 70 and their behavioural responses were assessed via video recordings to assess fearfulness. Machine-harvested milk yields of cows were evaluated during weeks 6–12. Data were analyzed with (generalized) linear mixed models. Throughout the debonding period, FC-NF calves had an impaired growth rate (P = 0.02). In weeks 6–9, FC-FS and FC-NF cows had lower machine-harvested milk yields than PC-BW, PC-AW, and NC cows (P ≤ 0.01). We found no differences in responsiveness of calves to behavioural tests, except that NC calves exhibited more solitary play events compared to PC and FC calves in the novel object test (P = 0.002). Overall, our results imply that calves with partial CCC showed low stress responses to debonding, whereas abrupt weaning with a nose-flap during full contact seemed most stressful. Machine-harvested milk yield of FC cows seemed to recover once calves were weaned. More research into strategies to improve the process of debonding is warranted

Effect of Type of Cow-Calf Contact on Health, Blood Parameters, and Performance of Dairy Cows and Calves

Prolonged cow-calf contact (CCC) could potentially improve dairy calf welfare. However, it is currently unknown how different types of CCC affect animals' biological functions. We evaluated health and performance parameters of dairy calves and their dams, where calves: (i) had no contact with their dam (NC), in which the calf was removed from the dam directly after birth (n = 10); (ii) were allowed to have partial contact (PC) with their dam, in which the calf was housed in a calf pen adjacent to the cow area allowing physical contact on the initiative of the dam but no suckling (n = 18); (iii) were allowed to have full contact (FC) with their dam, including suckling, in which calves were housed together with their dams in a free-stall barn (n = 20). Throughout the first 7 weeks postpartum, data were collected on the health status, fecal microbiota, hematological profile, immune and hormonal parameters, and growth rates of calves, and on the health status, metabolic responses, and performance of dams. Overall, FC calves had more health issues (P = 0.02) and a tendency for higher antibiotic usage (P = 0.07) than NC calves. Additionally, FC calves showed elevated levels of erythrocytes, hematocrit, hemoglobin, and leukocytes on day 49 compared to NC calves (P < 0.001). Calf fecal microbiota changed over time, and we found preliminary evidence that fecal microbiota is affected by the type of CCC, as reflected by differences in relative abundances of taxa including Lactobacillus in FC calves compared to NC and PC calves except on days 7 and 66. The FC calves had a greater average daily gain in body weight than NC and PC calves (P = 0.002). Cow health was not affected by the type of CCC, although in the first 7 weeks of lactation FC cows had a lower machine-gained milk yield accompanied by a lower fat percentage than NC and PC cows (P < 0.001). These results indicate that full contact posed a challenge for calf health, presumably because the housing conditions of FC calves in this experimental context were suboptimal. Secondly, ad libitum suckling leads to higher weight gains and negatively affected milk fat content besides machine-gained yields. More research into strategies to improve cow-calf housing and management in CCC systems is warranted