Dairy farmer: how to get started with the Bovilab concept
Get a grip on subclinical (invisible) ketosis and hypocalcemia
Mark van Kleef
Last Update a year ago
Start-up phase
During the start-up phase, you want to investigate the extent to which subclinical ketosis and hypocalcaemia (milk fever) occur on your farm.
For one month, collect blood samples from a number of close-up cows (approximately 7 days before calving) and fresh animals (3 or 4 days after calving) every week. Take a representative sample of sufficient size (at least 15 to 25 animals). Examine these animals with a transition slide and process the results in the dashboard.
TIP 1: make sure that you also include the lactation data in the cow number, use C for close-up, F for fresh and S for sick animals, followed by a dot and the lactation days. 56C.-7 is therefore a close-up cow, 7 days before calving.
Tip 2: use the 'graph in lactation days' setting in our dashboard for this.
During this month, you can identify and improve the general transition management. For this, see the transition management checklist.
Monitoring phase
Once you have improved your general transition management, it is important to focus on the close-up period. Sample representative cows every week (or every 2 weeks) in the close-up period, especially sample cows about 7 days before calving.
The aim is to achieve the following blood values on average:
| NEFA | 0,1 mmol/L |
| Calcium | 2,4 mmol/L |
| Magnesium | 1,0 mmol/L |
| BUN | 4,5 mmol/L |
| Phosphorus | 1,5 mmol/L |
If the trend is that too many cows do not reach these values, it is necessary to adjust the close-up ration. Individual cows that do not reach these values can be seen as risk cows and receive additional support (for increased NEFAs, administer energy orally with a bolus or drench, for reduced calcium, administer a Ca bolus around calving).
TIP 1: make sure that you also include the lactation stage in the cow number, use C for close-up, F for fresh and S for sick animals, followed by a dot and the lactation days (see example above).
Tip 2: use the 'graph in calendar days' setting in our dashboard for this.
Follow-up
If there are still too many problems with the fresh animals, the start-up phase can be repeated to improve the general transition management.
If the blood values reaches the target range for a longer period of time, it may be an option to make pool samples (take 1 ml from each tube and pipette this into a mixing tube, max 5 animals). Keep in mind that in this case you do not find abnormal individual cows.