Milk production in South Africa comes under pressure periodically as a result of market forces, but can dairy producers effectively respond to these market forces? During these periods a large number of dairy cows are slaughtered and their numbers decrease. As the average productive life of dairy ...
Similarly, narrow stall partitions (Tucker et al., 2004) and the presence of a brisket board (Tucker et al., 2006) can both reduce the time cows spend lying down in freestalls. Current stall designs thus seem to leave producers with 2 imperfect options: restrictively configured stalls that ...
Livestock Gross Margin (LGM) changes include: Allow producers to sign an application for coverage ahead of the sales period. For LGM Cattle and Swine, converted the “approved target marketings” and “target marketings” report to “cumulative target marketings”. For LGM Cattle, definitions for...
Uterine infection after calving can be costly to producers because uterine infection has been shown to impair reproductive performance (Opsomer et al., 2000; Melendez et al., 2004) and reduce milk yield (Rajala and Gröhn, 1998). Gröhn et al. (2003) suggested that the reproductive status...
Miniaturised NIR devices can offer many benefits to dairy producers in their routine product checks. Nevertheless, the handheld NIR devices are more of a complementary tool rather than a replacement of benchtop spectrometers. It is clear that portable, handheld and miniaturised devices are under ...
Housing in OP and ALT was associated with reduced perching for cows with high body weight; perching has been linked to an increased prevalence of both hoof lesions and lameness. Thus, alternative lying areas can offer a solution for producers seeking to provide cattle with the advantages of a ...