Prediction of periparturient disease in dairy cows

Authors: Sutherland RJ, Black H, Cockrem FRM
Publication: New Zealand Veterinary Journal, Volume 27, Issue 12, pp 275, Dec 1979
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Animal type: Cattle, Livestock, Production animal, Ruminant
Subject Terms: Clinical pathology, Diagnostic procedures, Parturition, Reproduction, Reproduction - female
Article class: Correspondence

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Abstract: Sommer, in a paper on preventive medicine in dairy cows, defined the “parturition syndrome” (PS) of highproducing dairy cows as the complex of “metabolic disorders and secondary infections of mammary glands and uterus” commonly occurring around calving. Within the syndrome are included retained placenta, endometritis, mastitis, ovarian disfunction, hypocalcaemia, hypomagnesaemia and ketosis; these conditions Sommer regards as being the clinical manifestations of an underlying nutritional failure which may be either primary malnutrition or secondary to liver and/or rumen malfunction. He reported that, under German conditions, cows susceptible to the PS can be identified during late pregnancy on the basis of their serum cholesterol and aspartate aminotransferase (ASAT) levels, and that timely treatment can reduce the incidence of clinical manifestations by about 60%. These German findings have been supported by Chilean work. Northland cows would not be regarded as high producers by German standards, and our grassland system of dairy cow nutrition is radically different from that within which Sommer worked…

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