FE cows
In the dry herd: all cows with obvious FE were dried off with the second batch taken out of the milkers, if they hadn't already been dried in early February. Number 19's udder peeled and just before drying off she was treated for clinical mastitis. These images were taken 20 March.
Previous images
Close up of udder, her front teats are badly scabbed.
Number Eighty appears to have made a straightforward recovery - she had mild skin damage and has never looked sick.
118 persistently licks that sore in the white area on her neck - every morning cut grass would be thrown up over her back as she swung her head up between mouthfuls. (which made her look very interesting when I put zinc cream over it). Her udder healed; she was treated for mastitis shortly after dry-off and eventually stopped losing weight.
Image taken 20 March above, 24 April below. So eventually she licked too far on the 'sore that wouldn't heal because she kept licking it' and turned up for drenching with a blood-matted muzzle and rivulets down her side. I taped on a dressing which she managed to remove during the night, and when I phoned the vet for advice was recommended to put a cover on her, and check the sore regularly.
She hates the cover. But the sore very quickly dried up and should heal - the dirty patch on the cover is where she continued trying to lick the area after the cover went on. I haven't seen her attempting to lick it for a few days. Her movement is restricted by the cover as her legs rub against the strap both front and back - seemed logical that the curved end fitted the neck and the long strap the rear, but maybe I put it on back to front or it's a size too big for her? At least now I know she's not going to lick herself into anaemia.
I checked the herd for mastitis this evening and her udder and teats have once again turned a deep purple colour.
138 doesn't have eczema. A blood test came up positive for Johne's disease and she has since been culled. She was well under cs3, with the bony ridge along her hip wings visible through the skin. Note the swelling under her jaw - it was more visible some days than others, and is caused by oedema; apparently typical in Johne's affected cows. All I know is that it's a very bad sign - usually once jaw oedema appears the vet is going to recommend culling (this is the second Johne's cow I've known with oedema, the only other cow I've seen with it was a heifer vet-diagnosed with a 'stuffed heart').
153 on 14 March. 153 was diagnosed with FE by blood test in late March, having been visibly 'sick' and losing condition for around a month. She never did show any skin damage. She was dried off with the first batch of cows as her milk was dropping to the point where she was about to dry herself off, and a couple of weeks later started looking a bit 'loopy' - staring, disconnected from reality, following me about if I went into the paddock. That first group of cows were on tight grazing owing to the drought, but should have been able to maintain condition on the feed they were being offered - they didn't, with cows like 153, 59, 138 pulling the group average down as the condition slowly melted off their bones.
153 started going 'down', and was taken out of the herd to graze in a flat paddock, firstly because she obviously wasn't fit to walk to the shed for drenching every day and secondly to avoid the other cows either aggresively or accidentally pushing her over. The first couple of times she stood up and started grazing again pretty quickly, then a spell of bad weather apparently weakened her and she decided she wasn't going to get up no more. This photo was taken on the 17 April. I had her shot a couple of days later.
A happy cow has a straight back
I don't know why 'tis so, only know that it is.
Perhaps that is why Giant Panda doesn't photograph well - maybe she's trying to look the same size as her herd-mates (that is an adult Jersey cow next to her, btw, not one of the smaller ones - and there's about a metre of space between them).
142 looks like a sick cow. She was dried off early for poor condition and yield, and in spite of the fact that she's in a small group of very light cows, free-grazing, the whole group has so far failed to put any weight on. Two of them I know have eczema - perhaps 142 is subclinical?
edit 27 April 142 does have Facial Eczema - her teats have turned purple. A further four cows have shown up with skin damage this last week, including 142 and 118 (who was affected at the beginning of Feb and apart from the sore on her back had fully healed).
This is in spite of daily drenching, and 142's group getting zinc added to their water trough daily (known to be less effective over-all than drenching, especially for dry cows). It's also the third time this year a group of cows have broken out with skin damage - early February around the time I started drenching, late March and now, late April.
Of the other two cows with eczema in 142's group, 59 was affected with the first lot and was dried off in February, has lost weight and failed to gain any since. 81 dried herself off in March and showed up with eczema a few days later, she lost condition but looks reasonably healthy now.
The other eczema cows seem to be managing to hold their weight. 151 was drafted into the free-grazing group when her condition started dropping fast - she has no skin damage, but I'm suspicious that just about every cow dried off early and failing to gain weight has liver damage.
Spore counts for this area?
Through the roof (or off the top of the RD1 graph at least, but suposedly on the way down.)
Research practices and ethics
Research in the medical field Barbara Heslop - looking back at the 1987 Cervical Cancer Inquiry
115 again
115 is obviously strong enough to become almost completely submerged in a swamp, pull herself out again and turn up for morning milking with the rest of the herd.
I had no idea until I saw her in the yard. She'd been in way up over her rump (see where the tide-mark stops halfway along her back) and has swamp silt up her neck all the way to just under her eyes.
I've seen cows arrive for milking covered in swamp mud before, but never when the swamp is down a sideling, behind an electric fence and presumably a few meters beyond the cutty grass (at least, I've never even seen the swamp behind the grass in that part of the paddock but I'd presumed it was there).
Feeding molasses at milking time
A question for LIC and Ambreed
To both companies: Why are the 'average BVs for breed' published in your respective catalogues completely different?
An Ambreed bull is compared for stature against an average NZ Holstein Friesian with a stature BV of 1.58 - while the same cow in the LIC catalogue has a stature BV of 1 exactly.
An average Jersey udder overall BV of .11 (LIC) against .23 (Ambreed) - some of the trait BVs are similar, others markedly different.
I read the Ambreed catalogue with the impression that the bulls were scored on a different scale - the arrival of the LIC one simply confirms it. How can you compare apples with apples if an 'easy-calving' Ambreed bull has a calving difficulty BV less than 4 (Firenze, Dantre, Commander) while the equivalent LIC bulls are all under 2.6?
And to LIC:
No, you're right, I misread the bull you had as top recommendation for easy calving (my Idol calves haven't arrived yet).
However, Nighthawk is still sitting pretty at the back of the catalogue with a calving difficulty BV of -0.5.
I haven't forgotten what his calves did to 148. Or 66. Or the size of the monster heifer 110 produced. Or that huge red woolly bull (can't remember whose he was). When submitting calving details across MINDAlink, I noted against at least two Nighthawk calves that there had been calving problems.
At the time, I presumed you had a simple computer programme scanning such information and compiling data that would inform you if there was a consistent issue with any one bull - that's why I put it there, not for my own records. I've since learned that you have no such system, and problems must be reported directly.
Nighthawk was such a consistent problem crossed across my Jersey cows that I knew before half of them were born he wasn't going to be used again. Am I the only farmer who knows he's unsuitable for crossing over Jersey? Or am I simply one of many who hasn't yet contacted the DM to discuss bulls, since learning that you don't screen the MINDA information submitted?
Am tempted to see Meridian calves again (in spite of his lower BW), but on his last chance around 85% of his calves were bulls. Pretty calves. Easy calving. Wrong sorta udders.
BTW I haven't picked bulls yet. You've both still got time to convince me.
Close up of udder, her front teats are badly scabbed.
Number Eighty appears to have made a straightforward recovery - she had mild skin damage and has never looked sick.
118 persistently licks that sore in the white area on her neck - every morning cut grass would be thrown up over her back as she swung her head up between mouthfuls. (which made her look very interesting when I put zinc cream over it). Her udder healed; she was treated for mastitis shortly after dry-off and eventually stopped losing weight.
Image taken 20 March above, 24 April below. So eventually she licked too far on the 'sore that wouldn't heal because she kept licking it' and turned up for drenching with a blood-matted muzzle and rivulets down her side. I taped on a dressing which she managed to remove during the night, and when I phoned the vet for advice was recommended to put a cover on her, and check the sore regularly.
153 on 14 March. 153 was diagnosed with FE by blood test in late March, having been visibly 'sick' and losing condition for around a month. She never did show any skin damage. She was dried off with the first batch of cows as her milk was dropping to the point where she was about to dry herself off, and a couple of weeks later started looking a bit 'loopy' - staring, disconnected from reality, following me about if I went into the paddock. That first group of cows were on tight grazing owing to the drought, but should have been able to maintain condition on the feed they were being offered - they didn't, with cows like 153, 59, 138 pulling the group average down as the condition slowly melted off their bones.
153 started going 'down', and was taken out of the herd to graze in a flat paddock, firstly because she obviously wasn't fit to walk to the shed for drenching every day and secondly to avoid the other cows either aggresively or accidentally pushing her over. The first couple of times she stood up and started grazing again pretty quickly, then a spell of bad weather apparently weakened her and she decided she wasn't going to get up no more. This photo was taken on the 17 April. I had her shot a couple of days later.
