Charmany Dairy Herd Newsletter Oct. 28 th - Nov. 4 th Daily Events Monday: Veterinary Diagnostics and Therapeutics Lab course (623-625) - Group A1-Dr.Simon Peek and 3 rd year students. Tuesday: Bleeding opportunity- tail bleed cows for Chuck Czuprynski s laboratory 4 th year Theriogenology rotation Herd Check Dr. Momont & 4 th yr. Students Wednesday: LAIM will be sending a 4 th year student to tail bleed and exam any sick cows. Immunology 202 - TB Testing for 2 nd year students-dr. Schultz Thursday: Video taping for HALF TIME with the following tentative schedule 10-10:30 - Lameness exam w. Dr. Nigel Cook 10:30-11 - Herd outside (hopefully they'll still be outside during most of this time slot) 11-11:30 - Interview with Dr. Bill Goodger 11:30-12 - Interview with Carmi Wallis 12-12:30 - Staged milking (where is Jessica Pagenkopf?) Veterinary Diagnostics and Therapeutics Lab course (623-625) - Group A1-Dr.Simon Peek and 3 rd year students. Friday: 7:30am - Management meeting for Teaching Herd management team Posilac injections given to eligible cows, opportunity for students Hoof Trimming for Groups A1 and A2-Dr. Nigel Cook in Surgical Area at Charmany
Charmany Dairy Herd Newsletter Oct. 28 th Nov. 4 th Weekly Events Cows due to calve: - Tina calved on 10-23-02 and had a bull calf named Ted. Trudy calved 23 days early and had 2 dead bull calves. Both were dystocia cases described below. COW DUE Dimples 10/22/02 Amanda 10/22/02 Sasha 10/24/02 Scarlet 10/30/02 April 11/13/02 Katrina 11/20/02 Diane 11/21/02 Char 11/22/02 Susan 11/23/02 Marcy 12/5/02 Lucy 12/5/02 Greta 12/18/02 Swish 1/01/03 Melody 1/01/03 Sandy 1/01/03 Trish 1/14/03 Griffey 1/14/03 Production and Milk Quality summary: The herd continues to milk an average of 91lbs/cow of Adjusted Corrected Milk (ACM). ACM is a calculation that standardizes milk to 3.5% fat content, produced by a 3 rd lactation cow at 150 DIM. Approximately 34 cows are producing 2830 lbs/day or 86 lbs/cow /day. This is approximately 62 lbs per stall going toward our breakeven of 68 lbs. The adjusted corrected milk graph below illustrates how well the cows are milking. Consistent hay and corn silage coupled with good a good ration and consistent feed delivery equals content healthy cows that produce a lot of milk!!
Adj. Corr. Milk Yield 100.0 90.0 80.0 70.0 Poiunds Milk 60.0 50.0 40.0 30.0 20.0 10.0 0.0 8/24/02 8/25/02 8/26/02 8/27/02 8/28/02 8/29/02 8/30/02 8/31/02 9/1/02 9/2/02 9/3/02 9/4/02 9/5/02 9/6/02 9/7/02 9/8/02 9/9/02 9/10/02 9/11/02 9/12/02 9/13/02 9/14/02 9/15/02 9/16/02 9/17/02 9/18/02 9/19/02 9/20/02 9/21/02 9/22/02 9/23/02 9/24/02 9/25/02 9/26/02 9/27/02 9/28/02 9/29/02 9/30/02 10/1/02 10/2/02 10/3/02 10/4/02 10/5/02 10/6/02 10/7/02 10/8/02 10/9/02 10/10/02 10/11/02 10/12/02 10/13/02 10/14/02 10/15/02 10/16/02 10/17/02 10/18/02 10/19/02 10/20/02 10/21/02 10/22/02 10/23/02 Date Sick Cows/Treatments/Breedings/Patient Care: Cindy - I am in the process of getting a consensus on culling Cindy. Her udder was ultrasounded and showed no abscess pockets, only inflammation. She continues to produce over 100lbs per day but the milk is not adequate for sale at 4.9 million SCC in all 3 quarters that are left milking. She has been out of the tank for 6 weeks and I believe she probably has Klebsiella in the 3 remaining quarters even though 2 cultures were negative. She had an extended period of time of systemic signs after the original quarter became infected and I think a hematogenous route may be a logical assumption. We actually treated all 3 quarters about 2 weeks ago with Cefa-lak with no decrease in SCC. So stay tuned Carolyn- The cow with the tightest teat end sphincters of any cow in the barn came down with mastitis in her LF quarter. The mastitis was caused by an environmental Strep which is unusual since we have had few of these (fine job done by student milkers!). However, this infection is probably due to the difficulty of all milkers to strip Carolyn out and the fact that this particular quarter milks out slower than the rest. We will have to step up our milking procedures on Carolyn. The good news is that our success in curing alpha Streps has been quite good in the past. Carolyn tested at 119 lbs. of milk per day last Tuesday.
Blackie -The number 1 leaking cow in the barn came down with mastitis in her RF quarter. The mastitis was caused by Klebsiella which isn t surprising considering the manuremilk-and wood shavings cocktail which occurs in her stall regularly. Blackie in the past seems to respond well to therapy and has not been out of the tank very often even though she has had chronic problems with Klebsiella. Because of the commensal relationship with this bacteria, she might have a chance to continue to milk in the herd. However, it will all come down to what level of SCC the herd can live with. With the price of milk being so low we need all the premiums we can get and of course we need to ship high quality milk to the public. Trudy- Tootsie s daughter Trudy went into labor prematurely by 23 days because she had twins which had their circulations compromised for whatever reasons. They died in-utero and Dr. Momont did a masterful job delivering them. Now Trudy is left with a mammary gland that has zero development, a retained placenta, potentially metritis, and potentially ketosis (depending on her production). So we treated the most critical problem - no mammary development by using rbst or growth hormone off-label to try to stimulate mammary development and thus some level of milk production. This has worked in the past on a few cows with the dilemma of calving prematurely or aborting late in lactation. Currently after 6 days she is up from zero to 20lbs of milk/day. Keep your fingers crossed! Above Trudy s previous udder, and current goal! Tina - One of our special red holsteins who is 8.5 years old went down with milk fever on Wednesday am. She probably had been in the first stage of labor for up to 10 hours and did not produce a calf because she had a uterine torsion and thus became our second dystocia of the week. Dr. Harry Momont and both 4 th year Therio and LAIM students corrected the torsion and delivered a large black and white holstein bull calf. Tina was treated with 2000 cc of Calcium (IV AND SUB-Q) because she had a calcium level of 4.4 mg/dl. The next day her calcium was 8.7 mg/dl and in a more normal range. She was moved to the box stall with sand bedding and was able to get up and begin to walk on Thursday. She is now on Aspirin to decrease the myositis in her rear leg muscles which is causing her some pain as evidenced by a high heart rate. Hopefully this will result in an improved appetite!
Lameness assessments: Karl Burgi will be trimming feet with Nigel Cook (using 2 chutes) on Wednesday November 6 th all day. Students are welcome to come out to Charmany to observe or get involved with trimming cow s feet. For third years this will be very timely as a follow-up to the Oct Foot trimming lab with Nigel Cook. Noteworthy item: Thank you to: Dr. Jo Anne Slack-for doing an excellent clinical job on Tina, Blackie, and Carolyn. Dr. Harry Momont - for doing an exemplary clinical job with Trudy and Tina. VMTH Clinical Chemistry lab - for providing faxed Stat services which made diagnostic decisions with Tina much easier. Students from Dr. Schultz s 2 nd year Immunology class (Groups 3 & 4) - for helping us move Tina to the box stall without any pain or injury to her. 4 th Year LAIM students who examined and followed up Tina s progress. (One was Maria Verbrugge and I don t know the other name but check with Laura Lien downstairs or Jo Slack) 4 th Year Theriogenology students who corrected the uterine torsion with a torsion rod and delivered Tina s calf. Steve Mell - for his down cow advice which is always right. Teaching Herd Party!!!!! Year 2 celebration for the U-W SVM Teaching herd is Friday, Nov 22 nd from 12 1 pm in Room 2255. Come join us for lunch supplied by Pfizer and meet the former herd owners - The Rukamps. Hear the real stories about Ace, Tootsie, and Katrina! Also, the herd s original veterinarian, Dr. Edie Brandt can fill us in on what really happened to Red. Paul McGraw of Stateline heifers and the WVMA pres-elect can report on the condition of our heifers. There will be a continual running Powerpoint by Mr. Power point himself Chris Eisele. There will be some thank you gifts to the above distinguished guests, the herd s management team and the clinicians who have made us successful. And then there is you the students who continue to make the herd successful and ask nothing for it but pizza, Pasquel s and subs. Boy is does not get any better!!! Above: Rukamp s, Chris Eisele, and Bill Goodger at Teaching Herd Party Last Year The HALF TIME project still needs students as noted by this e-mail from Tania Banak-- Dr. Cook says he can do the foot exam between 10-10:30 on 10/31. I still need some students out there to observe Dr. Cook! We'll also need several students to help with the milking segment (Carmi would certainly be one of them!) Let me know who might be willing and I'll follow up. So far, Dan Teasdale & Carmi have said they'd like to help. Thanks so much! I was thinking we'd get more students at 12-12:30 for a staged milking, but we can shift that to 11-11:30 if it works better with student schedules?
Projects: We give our Posilac injections on Friday mornings. Come give us a hand, as their can be up to 24 cows to inject. Feel free to show up any time between 6:00-7:30am. We have cows to vaccinate (J-5 and Scourgard) see Sara Colopy for the schedule. Rachel Klos continues to run the Nutrition monitoring project and always needs help. Sara Gilbertson is now doing the body condition scoring and always could use some help. Sarah Braeske is entering our financial data. Sara Colopy and Rachel Klos are editing the newsletter. Employment opportunities: If you are interested in gaining experience with dairy cows, we have the opportunity for you. You can join the milking crew at the Charmany Teaching Facility and work the AM or PM milking shifts. Weekday shifts are from 5:00 am to 7:00 am and from 4:30 pm to 8:30 pm. Weekend shifts are from 5:00 am to 12:00 pm and from 4:30 pm to 8:30 pm. Interested students should contact Dr. Bill Goodger at 770-1448. If you need to contact someone at the UW-SVM Teaching Herd Barn, call (608) 265-3558. Please direct correspondence regarding the Charmany Teaching Herd or the newsletter to: William J. Goodger, DVM, PhD cellular--608-770-1448 Email: wgoodger@facstaff.wisc.edu