7 – Role of Vet in Dairy Industry

Question 1

What is the evolution of herd health programs?

Answer 1

• Early: sick cow work, routine procedures
• Then producers learned procedures
• Now: focused on reproductive performance
  o Nutrition
  o Mastitis
  o Disease outbreaks
  o *source of information

Question 2

Vets and dairy farms in Scandinavia

Answer 2

• Vets MUST treat certain conditions
  o Must directly treat cases requiring antimicrobial therapy
• Animals commonly culled rather than treated

Question 3

What do vets do ‘now’, mixed practice and dairy practice?

Answer 3

• Abdomen exam
• Injection
• BCS
  thorax examination

Question 4

What do you need to learn to be a dairy vet? (asked dairy vets, what needs to be taught)

Answer 4

• Pregnancy diagnosis
• General surgery
• Physical examination
• Herd health management
  o Dairy practice: thought less important compared to those in mixed practice
  o Farm will mentor you (same for nutrition)
• Obstetrics
• Nutrition
  o Unimportant to dairy practices
• Communication
  o Important to dairy practices
• Lameness

Question 5

Trends in the industry

Answer 5

• Ageing producers
• Average dairy up to 1000 cows
  o Getting ‘vets’ w/o license from developing countries (cheaper and since employee can do procedures according to welfare requirements)
• Producers learn to do more procedures
  o Milk and blood tests currently available for pregnancy diagnosis
• *ProAction initiative: significant vet involvement (requirements are only going to get stricter)

Question 6

So how can vets be ‘more involved’ in farm?

Answer 6

• ID bottlenecks on farm
• Management deficiencies: animal health, welfare and productivity
• Appropriate monitoring leads to timely interventions
• *team approach
• *be the advocate for the cow!

Question 7

How do we gain and keep our ‘vet skills’?

Answer 7

• Communication skills
• Remain up to date: CE=critical
• Evidence-based interventions
• If no evidence=perform trials of interventions
• Economic modeling of interventions

Question 8

Why add value to the dairy industry as a vet?

Answer 8

• Make the dairy more money than we cost them
• Ex. new vet hired: increased income by $150,000/year (due to increased production) vs. vet cost $15,000/year
• *start with setting goals

Question 9

Set goals

Answer 9

• Yours and the producers
• Long-term vs. short term
• Clearly defined
• Quantifiable
  *1 goal at a time
• How will you monitor them?
• *if include improve or control=hard to be clearly defined

Question 10

Example of setting a fertility goal

Answer 10

• Annual meeting with herd manager
  o What do they want out of the next year
• Improved fertility
  o Set goal for calving interval: 365 days (current was 400 days)
  o 120 herd: 50% conception rate
• How many pregnancies/month? =10
• How many need to be inseminated/month?=20

Question 11

**What areas can we contribute?

Answer 11

• Vaccination programs
• Sick cow treatment protocols
• Mastitis
• Passive transfer and calf-feeding programs
• *start with small tasks and gain clients trust

Question 12

Sick cow treatment protocols and vet involvement

Answer 12

• We aren’t getting called for sick cows
• Gives control over drug us and sick cow outcomes
  *especially for antibiotics
• Necropsies on dead/euthanized animals

Question 13

Mastitis and vet involvement

Answer 13

• Reduce antimicrobial use
• *80% dairy farm antibiotics used for mastitis!