Preventive herd surveillance program as a tool in dairy herd management.

摘要

It is not possible to fix upper limits for milk yield with special respect to undisturbed herd health. Mean herd yield up to 11 000 kg milk/305 days can be realized without fundamental negative effects on cow health status. But risk for fertility and health problems increases as milk yield is growing. If cows get sick, than therapeutic success reduces and the culling rate increases with higher milk yield. Therefore, medical care should be focused more on the preventive methods with growing milk yield. Methods are described to evaluate the risk factors for the development of herd health problems. If these diagnostic methods are used consequently in herd management, then good fertility and undisturbed herd health can be reached for high yielding dairy cows.