Dataset Information

Dairy Calf Welfare and Factors Associated with Diarrhea and Respiratory Disease Among Chilean Dairy Farms.

ABSTRACT: This study aimed to describe management practices that may compromise the welfare of unweaned dairy calves on 29 dairy farms in Chile, and identify factors associated with diarrhea and respiratory disease (n = 700 calves). Evaluations were divided into protocol-, facility-, and animal-based measurements. Calf diarrhea and respiratory disease data were analyzed using logistic regression models. Management practices identified as risk factors for poor calf welfare were: relying on the mother to provide colostrum (48.0% of the farms); using restrictive milk feeding (65.5%), and unpasteurized waste milk (51.7%); giving water after 30 days of age (17.2%); disbudding without analgesia (89.6%) or anesthesia (79.3%); lacking euthanasia protocols (61.5%). Factors significantly (p < 0.05) associated with increased odds of diarrhea were: cleaning the calves´ bed once a week and 2-3 times a week compared with every day, using milk replacer and untreated waste milk compared with treated waste milk (pasteurized or acidified), animals scored dirty in the calf cleanliness score compared with clean animals, and greater herd size. Factors significantly associated with increased odds of respiratory disease were: less pen space allowance (<1.8 m2), farms that did not check colostrum quality, and animals that scored dirty and moderately dirty compared with clean calves. These results suggest the need to improve speci?c management practices associated with reduced welfare and health in dairy calves in Chile.

SUBMITTER: Calderon-Amor J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7401522 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Dairy Calf Welfare and Factors Associated with Diarrhea and Respiratory Disease Among Chilean Dairy Farms.

Calderón-Amor Javiera J Gallo Carmen C

Animals : an open access journal from MDPI 20200629 7

This study aimed to describe management practices that may compromise the welfare of unweaned dairy calves on 29 dairy farms in Chile, and identify factors associated with diarrhea and respiratory disease (n = 700 calves). Evaluations were divided into protocol-, facility-, and animal-based measurements. Calf diarrhea and respiratory disease data were analyzed using logistic regression models. Management practices identified as risk factors for poor calf welfare were: relying on the mother to pr ...[more]

PMID: 32610569

Similar Datasets

Project description:The primary objective of this study was to explore views of dairy calf welfare and dairy product consumption habits among youth and adults. The secondary objective was to explore views of dairy calf welfare and dairy product consumption habits among a subset of parent-child pairs. Participants 5-17 years of age (n = 463) and 18 years old or greater (n = 1,310) completed an in-person survey at the Minnesota State Fair (St. Paul, MN, USA) in summer 2018. A subset of these data was comprised of parent-child pairs (n = 188). The survey was administered via Qualtrics using iPads and included multiple-choice questions about demographics and calf welfare, an open-ended question on "what dairy calves need to have a good life," and multiple-choice questions about participants' consumption of dairy products and nondairy alternative products. Content analysis was used for responses to the open-ended question, and concepts to describe dairy calf welfare views were identified. Fisher's exact test and Cohen's Kappa were used to investigate the relationships between parent-child pair responses about dairy calf welfare. In addition to these methods, prevalence-adjusted and bias-adjusted kappa (PABAK) were used to investigate the relationships between parent-child pair responses about consumption habits. The median age of all youth participants was 11 years and 61% were female, 82% were urban residents, and 63% did not have prior experience handling agricultural animals but 83% had visited a farm in the past. Most youth participants (94.4%) indicated that they consumed dairy products, while 47.1% consumed nondairy alternatives products. Median age range of all adult participants was 45-54 years, 65% were female, 82% urban residents, and 81% did not have prior experience handling agricultural animals but 63% had visited a farm in the past. Most adult participants (94%) indicated that they consumed dairy products and 47% indicated that they consumed nondairy alternative products. In response to "what dairy calves need to have a good life," youth and adults most commonly focused on issues related to biological functioning (82 and 70% of youth and adults mentioning this concept, respectively), followed by natural living (44 and 50%, respectively), humane care (30 and 20%, respectively), and affective states (5% of both youth and adults). For the natural living concept of animal welfare, parent and child responses were slightly associated (Kappa = 0.19; P = 0.01; overall agreement = 61%). Almost all participants reported consuming dairy products, therefore, the agreement is high between parents and children because in most households (90%), both parents and children consume dairy products. However, child consumption was observed to be lower (75%, 9/12) when parents do not consume dairy than when parents do consume dairy (95%, 167/176), leading to a Kappa of 0.20 (P = 0.006, PABAK = 0.81) and a slight association between parents and children. The results suggest that biological functioning is highly valued by the public and views of parents and their children related to natural living in dairy calves are slightly associated.

Project description:The aim of this study was to investigate the potential risk factors for clinical and subclinical mastitis in smallholder dairy farms in Brazil. A prospective, repeated cross-sectional study was carried out between May 2018 and June 2019 on 10 smallholder dairy farms. Potential risk factors for subclinical and clinical mastitis at the herd and cow level were recorded through interviewing the owner and by observation. A combination of clinical udder examination and the Tamis (screened mug with a dark base) test (Tadabras Indústria e Comércio de Produtos Agrovetereinário LTDA, Bragrança Paulista, SP, Brazil) were applied to observe clinical mastitis, and the California Mastitis Test (Tadabras Indústria e Comércio de Produtos Agrovetereinário LTDA, Bragrança Paulista, SP, Brazil) was used to determine subclinical mastitis. A total of 4567 quarters were tested, 107 (2.3%) had clinical mastitis, while 1519 (33.2%) had subclinical mastitis. At the cow level, clinical mastitis risk was highest in mid-lactation (50-150 days in milk) with OR 2.62 with 95% confidence interval (CI) of 1.03-6.67, while subclinical mastitis was highest in late lactation (> 150 days in milk) with OR 2.74 (95% CI 2.05-3.63) and lower in primiparous (OR 0.54, 95% CI 0.41-0.71) than multiparous cows. At the herd level, using dry-cow treatment (OR 4.23, 95% CI 1.42-12.62) was associated with an increased risk of clinical mastitis. Milking clinical (OR 0.37, 95% CI 0.24-0.56) and subclinical cases last (OR 0.21, 95% CI 0.09-0.47) and cleaning the milking parlor regularly (OR 0.27, 95% CI 0.15-0.46) had decreased odds for subclinical mastitis, while herds with optimized feed had greater odds (OR 9.11, 95% CI 2.59-31.9). Prevalence of clinical mastitis was at its lowest at the first visit in June/July and highest at the last visit in April/June (OR 3.81, 95% CI 1.93-7.52). Subclinical mastitis also presented increased odds in the last visit (OR 2.62, 95% CI 2.0-3.36). This study has identified some risk factors for mastitis on smallholder farms but further research on more farms across more areas of Brazil is required to develop a targeted mastitis control program for smallholder farms.

Dataset Information

Dairy Calf Welfare and Factors Associated with Diarrhea and Respiratory Disease Among Chilean Dairy Farms.

Publications

Dairy Calf Welfare and Factors Associated with Diarrhea and Respiratory Disease Among Chilean Dairy Farms.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets