Dairy Cattle Disease Prevention and Control Methods and Technical Key Points

High yield, stable yield and health are the goals that a dairy herd should achieve, among which health is the key. Only when dairy cattle are healthy can there be high and stable yield. Due to environmental changes and negligence in feeding management, disease outbreaks in dairy cattle are unavoidable; what matters is how to reduce the occurrence of such diseases and the resulting losses to the lowest possible level. For a dairy farm with good feeding techniques and a high management level, the goals of disease control should be:
(1) The total annual culling rate is 25%-28%;
(2) The annual mortality rate is below 3%;
(3) The mastitis treatment rate should not exceed 1% of lactating cows;
(4) The mortality rate of calves within 8 weeks of age is below 5%;
(5) The mortality and culling rate of growing heifers is below 3%;
(6) The annual abortion rate of pregnant cows does not exceed 8%.
　　
The health of the herd should have a solid health care plan, the key to which lies in the early prevention of diseases, correct diagnosis and effective treatment.
　　
I. Prevention: Prevention should be based on preventive medicine, and its measures include nutrition, disinfection, isolation, diagnosis, culling and immunization.
Nutrition is the material basis of dairy cattle health and the fundamental guarantee of the body's health. Reasonable feeding and a balanced diet can enhance the body's resistance; in addition to directly causing nutritional and metabolic diseases in dairy cattle, malnutrition also makes them susceptible to various other diseases.
Regular cleaning and disinfection of the farm environment, especially before and after calving, can reduce the growth and reproduction of environmental microorganisms; isolating sick cattle, or conducting necessary health checks and isolation (2-3 weeks) when purchasing dairy cattle from other dairy farms, can greatly reduce the spread of disease between individual dairy cattle and between herds. Strict epidemic prevention and the timely culling of cattle suffering from tuberculosis, brucellosis and foot-and-mouth disease are effective methods for eliminating sources of infection and preventing their spread.
　　
II. Diagnosis: Accurate and rapid diagnosis of diseases is an important part of recovering losses. Without timely and accurate diagnosis, there will be no effective treatment. Clinical diagnosis should adopt simple, easy-to-implement and effective methods, and medical records should be established to continuously summarize clinical experience.
Clinical examination should combine general examination (including mental state and walking examination, skin examination, ocular conjunctiva examination, superficial lymph node examination and body temperature measurement, etc.) with systematic examination (including pulse, respiration, appetite, rumination, feces and urine, reproductive organs, and udder changes); when conditions permit, pathological necropsy and laboratory examination may also be carried out.