Elanco is a global leader in animal health dedicated to innovating and delivering products and services to prevent and treat disease in farm animals and pets, creating value for farmers, pet owners, veterinarians, stakeholders, and society as a whole.
Our Promise: We will rigorously innovate to benefit our customers and improve the health of animals.
Elanco’s comprehensive product portfolio supports you in improving animal health, welfare and productivity, for optimal health and performance, whether for controlling liver fluke or preventing ketosis in dairy cows.
Our products and services for dairy cows help farmers to prevent disease and maximise herd health, fertility and productivity to optimise the herd’s potential. Dairy cow transition health is a key area that we are interested in, due to the importance of determining how well cows will perform in their subsequent lactation. Problems with transition cows usually manifest themselves in the month immediately after calving: around 75% of all adult cow health problems happen in the period around calving1, with up to 50% of cows having some health issues at this time2. However, multiple factors can contribute, and many of the important precipitating factors start prior to calving, ie. dry period.
It is known that good transition cow management is essential for productivity, but around calving and into early lactation, there is inevitably a deficit between energy intake and requirement. This energy gap leads to clinical and sub-clinical ketosis in many cases and can best be avoided by maintaining dry matter intake (without overfeeding energy) in the dry period. Sub-clinical ketosis can cost £2203per head, bringing a large financial burden through reduced production, impaired fertility, and secondary disease.
Elanco has a range of tools to help farmers manage their cows effectively during the transition period, including our healthy start checklist. Please either visit the Elanco stand at the British Cattle Breeders Club Conference on dairy day, or get in touch via our website: www.farmanimal.elanco.com/en_gb/dairy/dairy-ketosis
1. Major Advances in Disease Prevention in Dairy Cattle, S J LeBlanc, K D Lissemore, D F Kelton, T F Duffield, K E Leslie. American Dairy Science Association 2006.
2. LeBlanc, S., 2010. Monitoring metabolic health of dairy cattle in the transition period. Journal of Reproduction and Development 56 (Suppl), S29–S35.
3. Raboisson et al., 2015. The economic impact of subclinical ketosis at the farm level: Tackling the challenge of over-estimation due to multiple interactions. Preventive Veterinary Medicine 122 (2015) 417–425
PM-UK-23-0532
Article supplied by Elanco. The British Cattle Breeders Club would like to thank Elanco for their support of the 2024 BCBC Conference 'Green Genes - Revolutionising cattle breeding for a sustainable future'