Managing Nutrition to Improve the Metabolic Health and Reproduction of Dairy Cows

摘要

Transition cow management is currently considered as the key factor for subsequent adequate milk productivity, dairy cow health and reproduction. Transition cow management is a container term. It comprises different aspects of farm management, even including the nutrition at the end of lactation and during the dry period, as well as the cows' health status during the latter periods, but most of all it comprises the nutrition during about the last 20 days antepartum and the first 30 days postpartum, the health status of the cows during these weeks, and husbandry factors such as housing and barn climate, as well as cow comfort elements. Transition cow management should prepare the cow in such a way that she would be able to adequately counteract the different periods of high risk between calving and day 100 postpartum. In this context, risks refer to metabolic, other health and reproductive disorders during the transition period. Inadequate transition management leads to a whole spectrum of subclinical and clinical health, reproduction and milk production disorders.This paper addresses issues of transition cow management and the respective risk periods after calving. These risk periods comprise health and fertility disorders. Ultimately, management measures to better control and possibly prevent disorders in the period between calving and day 100 postpartum are discussed.