HFV News MAY 2022

BEWARE: Staggers Risk

This recent rain will bring about a welcome flush of grass growth - this fast growing grass tends to be low in magnesium and low in fibre so it passes quickly through her guts before the mag can be absorbed. There are no stores of magnesium in the body for the cow - she gets all she needs from what she eats every day so the next few weeks will be a challenging time for mag availability.

What does staggers look like?

• initially odd neurological signs: high head carriage, twitching muscles, appears blind, staggering and paddling
• quickly becomes a flat out cow, paddling, fitting and sweating - these are dangerous animals to go near so PLEASE be careful in handling or treating a possible staggers

Sadly, often the first thing you see is a dead cow, so if you are worried about a possible staggers - you need to act fast; it is one of the true veterinary emergencies.

How do we treat it?

Safety here is VITAL - a thrashing, flat out cow can be a very risky patient.

We need to get blood levels of magesium back up as quickly as possible - but magnesium can kill a cow if you give it too much into the vein.

In mild to moderate cases we would recommend a bottle of calcium into the vein if you can restrain her safely enough, and a bottle of magnesium under the skin but sometimes they are thrashing so madly that it is an emergency vet job and we need to sedate them and give muscle relaxants before we can treat them.

What can we do to prevent staggers?

1. Buffer feed with extra roughage to slow down the grass passing through the guts
2. Supplement with additional magnesium during high risk periods.

Mag licks are convenient but it doesn't guarantee every cow has had enough - and always beware how you feed molassed licks - badgers love them.

Mineralised concentrates can help to make sure every cow is supplemented but not all cows need extra energy from concentrate at this time of year.

Rumen boluses guarantee every animal is protected but they are labour intensive.

Mag salts can be added to the water supply which is quick and easy but it's pretty unpalatable for the cows so make sure there are no other water sources.

Sunshine & Cell Counts

Historically, turn out and "Dr Green" meant an improvement in udder health with fewer cases of clinical mastitis and lowered cell counts, but as mastitis pathogens and patterns change on farm, and winter housing and environments improve, we can see a seasonal spike especially in cell counts during the summer months.

Strep. uberis is the usual suspect; an environmental bug that comes into the parlour on contaminated teats but can also pass cow to cow once infection gets hold. There are typical hot spots for Strep. uberis at pasture, especially around shaded trees where stocking density can be very high when the weather is warm or via churned up gateways when the weather is wet. Strep. uberis can survive for up to 21 days on pasture before UV light destroys it so make sure your rotation is set to reduce this risk.

Pre-dipping what look like already clean teats in the summer months can seem a bit OTT, and obviously adds time to the milking routine, but it can really help reduce the environmental load of bacteria sat on the teat skin. It is these bacteria that can then get into the udder during the milking process and cause the sub-clinical infections which show up as an increased cell count. Remember the pre-dip is a rapid kill product but still needs at least 30 seconds contact time in order to be effective.

HFV MILK CULTURES

We do all our own mastitis and high cell count milk cultures in the lab at HFV. If you sample a mastitis case, we can get it plated, into the incubator and you will have a diagnosis within 16-24hours. Not only does a diagnosis help tailor treatment protocols for the individual, but over time it helps us identify common patterns which help with prevention strategies too.

Please get in touch if you are struggling with summer cell count issues and you want to know a bit more about control strategies that would work practically on your farm.

Happy Birthday HFV!

May 5th is a bit of a milestone for us as we celebrate 2 years of HFV!

Paula, Tom & Amy would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support over the last couple of years; for your confidence in us, for the conversations we have, for the feedback you give, for your recommendations, for the way you run your farms and for what we have achieved working together with you all.