Date Available

10-4-2018

Year of Publication

2018

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Document Type

Master's Thesis

College

Agriculture, Food and Environment

Department/School/Program

Animal and Food Sciences

First Advisor

Dr. James Matthews

Abstract

Precision dairy monitoring technologies can be used to monitor changes in physiology and behavior associated with transition period postpartum diseases and heat stress. Research Objective One was to evaluate how traditional visual examination, body condition, and locomotion with and without blood, milk, and urine variables and precision dairy monitoring technologies determine variable association with hyperketonemia, metritis, mastitis, hypocalcemia and retained placenta,. This was accomplished by monitoring cows 2 weeks before calving to 3 weeks after calving for any postpartum diseases using daily visual examination and automatically detected variables including activity, milk yield, milk components, lying behavior, feeding behavior, rumination time, and reticulorumen temperature. Deviations in reticulorumen temperature, milk production, eating time, lying time, and activity were detected by precision dairy monitoring technologies among cows with postpartum diseases. Research Objective Two was to determine the association between automatically detected variables and heat stress. This objective was accomplished by monitoring cows under natural ventilation, fans, and fans plus sprinklers for variations under each condition. Changes in physiology and behavior as detected by precision dairy monitoring technologies was associated with postpartum diseases and heat stress. Using precision dairy monitoring technologies and visual examinations may aid producers in identifying postpartum disease and heat stress.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2018.379

Funding Information

Cargill Inc. (Wayzata, MN, USA) funded this project.

Download

Included in

Dairy Science Commons

Share

COinS