Paratuberculosis (also called Johne’s disease) is a chronic disease caused by Mycobacterium avium ssp. paratuberculosis (MAP) that affects ruminants and other animals. The epidemiology of ...paratuberculosis is complex and the clinical manifestations and economic impact of the disease in cattle can be variable depending on factors such as herd management, age, infection dose, and disease prevalence, among others. Additionally, considerable challenges are faced in the control of paratuberculosis in cattle, such as the lack of accurate and reliable diagnostic tests. Nevertheless, efforts are directed toward the control of this disease because it can cause substantial economic losses to the cattle industry mainly due to increased premature culling, replacement costs, decreased milk yield, reduced feed conversion efficiency, fertility problems, reduced slaughter values, and increased susceptibility to other diseases or conditions. The variability and uncertainty surrounding the estimations of paratuberculosis prevalence and impact influence the design, implementation, and efficiency of control programs in diverse areas of the world. This review covers important aspects of the economic impact and control of paratuberculosis, including challenges related to disease detection, estimations of the prevalence and economic effects of the disease, and the implementation of control programs. The control of paratuberculosis can improve animal health and welfare, increase productivity, reduce potential market problems, and increase overall business profitability. The benefits that can derive from the control of paratuberculosis need to be communicated to all industry stakeholders to promote the implementation of control programs. Moreover, if the suspected link between Johne’s disease in ruminants and Crohn’s disease in humans was established, significant economic losses could be expected, particularly for the dairy industry, making the control of this disease a priority across dairy industries internationally.
The global dairy industry needs to reappraise the systems of milk production that are operated at farm level with specific focus on enhancing technical efficiency and competitiveness of the sector. ...The objective of this study was to quantify the factors associated with costs of production, profitability, and pasture use, and the effects of pasture use on financial performance of dairy farms using an internationally recognized representative database over an 8-yr period (2008 to 2015) on pasture-based systems. To examine the associated effects of several farm system and management variables on specific performance measures, a series of multiple regression models were developed. Factors evaluated included pasture use kg of dry matter/ha and stocking rate (livestock units/ha), grazing season length, breeding season length, milk recording, herd size, dairy farm size (ha), farmer age, discussion group membership, proportion of purchased feed, protein %, fat %, kg of milk fat and protein per cow, kg of milk fat and protein per hectare, and capital investment in machinery, livestock, and buildings. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated costs of production per hectare differed by year, geographical location, soil type, level of pasture use, proportion of purchased feed, protein %, kg of fat and protein per cow, dairy farm size, breeding season length, and capital investment in machinery, livestock, and buildings per cow. The results of the analysis revealed that farm net profit per hectare was associated with pasture use per hectare, year, location, soil type, grazing season length, proportion of purchased feed, protein %, kg of fat and protein per cow, dairy farm size, and capital investment in machinery and buildings per cow. Pasture use per hectare was associated with year, location, soil type, stocking rate, dairy farm size, fat %, protein %, kg of fat and protein per cow, farmer age, capital investment in machinery and buildings per cow, breeding season length, and discussion group membership. On average, over the 8-yr period, each additional tonne of pasture dry matter used increased gross profit by €278 and net profit by €173 on dairy farms. Conversely, a 10% increase in the proportion of purchased feed in the diet resulted in a reduction in net profit per hectare by €97 and net profit by €207 per tonne of fat and protein. Results from this study, albeit in a quota limited environment, have demonstrated that the profitability of pasture-based dairy systems is significantly associated with the proportion of pasture used at the farm level, being cognizant of the levels of purchased feed.
The unique rumen of dairy cows allows them to digest fibrous forages and feedstuffs. Surprisingly, to date few attempts have been made to develop national methods to gain an understanding on the ...make-up of a dairy cow's diet, despite the importance of milk production. Consumer interest is growing in purchasing milk based on the composition of the cows' diet and the time they spend grazing. The goal of this research was to develop such a methodology using the national farm survey of Ireland as a data source. The analysis was completed for a 3-yr period from 2013 to 2015 on a nationally representative sample of 275 to 318 dairy farms. Trained auditors carried out economic surveys on farms 3 to 4 times per annum. The auditors collected important additional information necessary to estimate the diet of cows including the length of the grazing season, monthly concentrate feeding, type of forage(s) conserved, and milk production. Annual cow intakes were calculated to meet net energy requirements for production, maintenance, activity, pregnancy, growth, and live weight change using survey data and published literature. Our analysis showed that the average annual cow feed intake on a fresh matter basis ranged from 22.7 t in 2013 to 24.8 t in 2015 and from 4.8 to 5 t on a dry matter basis for the same period. Forage, particularly pasture, was the largest component of the Irish cow diet, typically accounting for 96% of the diet on a fresh matter basis and 82% of dry matter intake over the 3 yr. Within the cows' forage diet, grazed pasture was the dominant component and on average contributed 74 to 77% to the average annual cow fresh matter diet over the period. The proportion of pasture in the annual cow diet as fed was also identified as a good indicator of the time cows spend grazing (e.g., coefficient of determination = 0.85). Monthly, forage was typically the main component of the cow diet, but the average contribution of concentrate was substantial for the early spring months of January and February (30 to 35% of dry matter intake). Grazed pasture was the dominant source of forage from March to October and usually contributed 95 to 97% of the diet as fed in the summer period. Overall, the national farm survey from 2013 to 2015 shows that Irish dairy farms are very reliant on forage, particularly pasture, regardless of whether it is reported on a dry matter basis or as fed. There is potential to replicate this methodology in any regions or nations where representative farm surveys are conducted.
Similar to all dairy systems internationally, pasture-based dairy systems are under increasing pressure to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Ireland and New Zealand are 2 countries ...operating predominantly pasture-based dairy production systems where enteric CH4 contributes 23% and 36% of total national emissions, respectively. Ireland currently has a national commitment to reduce 51% of total GHG emissions by 2030 and 25% from agriculture by 2030, as well as striving to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. New Zealand's national commitment is to reduce 10% of methane emissions by 2030 and between 24% and 47% reduction in methane emissions by 2050. To achieve these reductions, factors that affect enteric methane (CH4) production in a pasture-based system need to be investigated. The objective of this study was to assess the relationship between enteric CH4 and other animal traits (feed intake, metabolic liveweight, energy corrected milk yield, milk urea concentration, and body condition score BCS) in a grazing dairy system. Enteric CH4 emissions were measured on 45 late lactation (213.8 ± 29 d after calving) grazing Holstein-Friesian and Holstein-Friesian × Jersey crossbred cows (lactation number 3.01 ± 1.65, 538.64 ± 59.37 kg live weight, and 3.14 ± 0.26 BCS) using GreenFeed monitoring equipment for 10 wk. There was a training period for the cows to use the GreenFeed of 3 wk before the 10-wk study period. The average enteric CH4 produced in the study was 352 g ± 45.7 g per day with an animal to animal coefficient of variation of 13%. Dry matter intake averaged 16.6 kg ± 2.23 kg per day, while milk solids (fat plus protein) averaged 1.62 kg ± 0.29 kg per day. A multiple linear regression model indicated that each one unit increase in energy corrected milk yield, metabolic liveweight and milk urea concentration, resulted in an increase in enteric CH4 production per day by 3.9, 1.74, and 1.38 g, respectively. Although each one unit increase in BCS resulted in a decrease in 39.03 g CH4 produced per day. When combined, these factors explained 47% of the variation in CH4 production, indicating that there is a large proportion of variation not included in the model. The repeatability of the CH4 measurements was 0.66 indicating that cows are relatively consistently exhibiting the same level of CH4 throughout the study. Therefore, enteric CH4 production is suitable for phenotyping.
•Several important ruminant behaviours can be predicted from portable accelerometers.•Rarely observed and transitional behaviours are more difficult to predict.•An obstacle to commercial deployment ...arises from a lack of model generalisation.•Large datasets with a wide range of variability ensure a better generalisation.•Pre-processing should be adapted to the objective and protocol of each study.
Precision Technologies are emerging in the context of livestock farming to improve management practices and the health and welfare of livestock through monitoring individual animal behaviour. Continuously collecting information about livestock behaviour is a promising way to address several of these target areas. Wearable accelerometer sensors are currently the most promising system to capture livestock behaviour. Accelerometer data should be analysed properly to obtain reliable information on livestock behaviour. Many studies are emerging on this subject, but none to date has highlighted which techniques to recommend or avoid. In this paper, we systematically review the literature on the prediction of livestock behaviour from raw accelerometer data, with a specific focus on livestock ruminants. Our review is based on 66 surveyed articles, providing reliable evidence of a 3-step methodology common to all studies, namely (1) Data Collection, (2) Data Pre-Processing and (3) Model Development, with different techniques used at each of the 3 steps. The aim of this review is thus to (i) summarise the predictive performance of models and point out the main limitations of the 3-step methodology, (ii) make recommendations on a methodological blueprint for future studies and (iii) propose lines to explore in order to address the limitations outlined. This review shows that the 3-step methodology ensures that several major ruminant behaviours can be reliably predicted, such as grazing/eating, ruminating, moving, lying or standing. However, the areas faces two main limitations: (i) Most models are less accurate on rarely observed or transitional behaviours, behaviours may be important for assessing health, welfare and environmental issues and (ii) many models exhibit poor generalisation, that can compromise their commercial use. To overcome these limitations we recommend maximising variability in the data collected, selecting pre-processing methods that are appropriate to target behaviours being studied, and using classifiers that avoid over-fitting to improve generalisability. This review presents the current situation involving the use of sensors as valuable tools in the field of behaviour recording and contributes to the improvement of existing tools for automatically monitoring ruminant behaviour in order to address some of the issues faced by livestock farming.
Lactose is the main carbohydrate in mammals' milk, and it is responsible for the osmotic equilibrium between blood and alveolar lumen in the mammary gland. It is the major bovine milk solid, and its ...synthesis and concentration in milk are affected mainly by udder health and the cow's energy balance and metabolism. Because this milk compound is related to several biological and physiological factors, information on milk lactose in the literature varies from chemical properties to heritability and genetic associations with health traits that may be exploited for breeding purposes. Moreover, lactose contributes to the energy value of milk and is an important ingredient for the food and pharmaceutical industries. Despite this, lactose has seldom been included in milk payment systems, and it has never been used as an indicator trait in selection indices. The interest in lactose has increased in recent years, and a summary of existing information about lactose in the dairy sector would be beneficial for the scientific community and the dairy industry. The present review collects and summarizes knowledge about lactose by covering and linking several aspects of this trait in bovine milk. Finally, perspectives on the use of milk lactose in dairy cattle, especially for selection purposes, are outlined.
Grass management technologies (grass measuring devices and grassland management decision support tools) have been identified as important tools to improve the performance of pasture-based dairy ...farms. They have the potential to significantly improve the efficiency and sustainability of dairy systems by increasing milk production through enhanced pasture growth and utilization, which would reduce the need for supplementary feeds, along with increased output, therefore increasing farm profitability and environmental sustainability. Despite the several potential benefits of grass management technologies, there is a lack of empirical research around the effects of these technologies on the performance of pasture-based dairy systems. The current study aimed to fill this knowledge gap by using a 2018 nationally representative survey of Irish dairy farms and a propensity score matching approach to determine the effects of adopting grass management technologies on the physical, environmental, and financial performance of Irish pasture-based dairy farms. The findings showed that dairy farms utilizing grass management technologies had, on average, higher farm physical, environmental, and financial performance (in terms of grazed pasture use, total pasture use, length of the grazing season, milk yield, milk solids, greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of fat- and protein-corrected milk, gross output, and gross margin) compared with dairy farms not utilizing these technologies. However, when controlling for selection bias, we can only attribute a positive causal effect of grass management technology adoption on the use of grazed pasture per cow, grazing season length, milk yield per cow, and milk solids per cow. This might be due to dairy farmers not yet using the technologies to their full potential, 2018 being an unusual year in terms of weather (and therefore not being able to capture the full range of farm performance benefits), or because grass management technologies need to be adopted in association with other technologies and practices to achieve their expected performance outcomes. Future research should include updated farm-level data to capture the weather and learning effects and so be able to determine the impact of grass management technologies on a wider range of performance indicators.
To maximize efficiency, profitability, and societal acceptance of modern dairy production, it is important to minimize the production of male dairy calves with poor beef merit. One solution involves ...using sex-sorted sperm (SS) to generate dairy replacements and breeding all other cows to an easy-calving, short-gestation bull with good beef merit. We used the Pasture Based Herd Dynamic Milk Model to investigate the effect of herd fertility and use of SS on farm net profit in a herd of 100 cows. This was completed by simulating herds with differing fertility performance (good, average, poor), and differing farm reproductive management conventional semen (CONV) or SS with varying pregnancy per artificial insemination (P/AI) relative to CONV (i.e., relative P/AI 100%, 85%, and 70%). As an additional consideration, the method of allocating SS to cows was also examined. The first option used SS on random heifers and cows (S). The second option used SS on heifers and targeted high-fertility cows (SSel). The final option was similar to SSel, but used a fixed-time artificial insemination (AI) protocol to facilitate AI on the farm mating start date (SSync). For CONV, dairy breed semen was used for AI until 50 animals were pregnant (50% chance of a female calf), whereas for S, SSel, or SSync the target number of animals successfully conceiving with SS was set at 28 (based on assumed 90% chance of a female calf from pregnancies derived from SS). Beef breed semen was used on all other dams. The results indicated that the biggest effect on farm net profit was not based on whether or not SS was used, but instead was most affected by the overall fertility performance of the herd. Total farm profit decreased by 10% between the good and average fertility herds, and decreased by a further 12% between the average and poor fertility herds. In almost all situations, when the relative P/AI with SS was ≥85%, use of SS led to an overall increase of the farm net profit. There was an economic benefit of using either SSel or SSync compared with S for the average and poor fertility herds but not for the good fertility herd, highlighting an interaction between SS P/AI and overall herd fertility as well as management practices. If the relative P/AI with SS was <70%, the use of SS led to a decrease in profitability in all simulations except for SSync, highlighting the importance of a good management strategy for use of SS. The findings in this study indicated that SS has significant potential to help facilitate greater integration between the dairy and beef production sectors, as well as increase farm profitability when used appropriately.
There are significant costs associated with reproductive inefficiency in pasture-based dairy herds. This study has quantified the economic effect of a number of key variables associated with ...reproductive inefficiency in a dairy herd and related them to 6-week calving rate for both cows and heifers. These variables include: increased culling costs, the effects of sub optimum calving dates, increased labour costs and increased artificial insemination (AI) and intervention costs. The Moorepark Dairy Systems Model which is a stochastic budgetary simulation model was used to simulate the overall economic effect at farm level. The effect of change in each of the components was simulated in the model and the costs associated with each component was quantified. An analysis of national data across a 4-year period using the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation database was used to quantify the relationship between the 6-week calving rate of a herd with survivability (%), calving interval (days) and the level of AI usage. The costs associated with increased culling (%), calving date slippage (day), increased AI and intervention costs (0.1 additional inseminations), as well as, increased labour costs (10%) were quantified as €13.68, €3.86, €4.56 and €29.6/cow per year. There was a statistically significant association between the 6-week calving rate and survivability, calving interval and AI usage at farm level. A 1% change in 6-week calving rate was associated with €9.26/cow per annum for cows and €3.51/heifer per annum for heifers. This study does not include the indirect costs such as reduced potential for expansion, increased costs associated with failing to maintain a closed herd as well as the unrealised potential within the herd.
Locomotion scoring is time consuming and is not commonly completed on farms. Farmers also underestimate their herds' lameness prevalence, a knowledge gap that impedes lameness management. Automation ...of lameness detection could address this knowledge gap and facilitate improved lameness management. The literature pertinent to adding lameness detection to accelerometers is reviewed in this paper. Options for lameness detection systems are examined including the choice of sensor, raw data collected, variables extracted, and statistical classification methods used. Two categories of variables derived from accelerometer-based systems are examined. These categories are behavior measures such as lying and measures of gait. For example, one measure of gait is the time a leg is swinging during a gait cycle. Some behavior-focused studies have reported accuracy levels of greater than 80%. Cow gait measures have been investigated to a lesser extent than behavior. However, classification accuracies as high as 91% using gait measures have been reported with hardware likely to be practical for commercial farms. The need for even higher accuracy and potential barriers to adoption are discussed. Significant progress is still required to realize a system with sufficient specificity and sensitivity. Lameness detection systems using 1 accelerometer per cow and a resolution lower than 100 Hz with gait measurement functions are suggested to balance cost and data requirements. However, gait measurement using accelerometers is rather underdeveloped. Therefore, a high priority should be given to the development of novel gait measures and testing their ability to differentiate lame from nonlame cows.
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