Impacts of Dairy Cattle Lameness on Reproduction and Milk Yield

• Main Author: Bielamowicz, L Paige
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2023
• Subjects: Animal sciences; Food Science
• ISBN: 9798380136310

Reproduction and milk yield are two of the most important factors in dairy cattle production and lameness can be one of the top diseases on a dairy farm. Therefore, the objective of this study was to use retrospective data to determine if lameness impacts reproduction and milk yield in Holstein dairy cattle across the United States. Through collaboration with AgriTech Analytics (Visalia, CA), data from 2018 to 2023 was gathered. Using SAS (Version 9.4, SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, NC) data was cleaned, and descriptive statistics were run. Lameness was defined as yes or no: yes lameness meant there was record input in lame event, no lameness meant there was no record input. A MIXED model was run in SPSS (IBM, Armonk, New York) to evaluate the effects of lameness, lactation number, days in milk lifetime to date (DIMLTD), and times milked, and their two-way interactions for energy corrected milk (ECM), days open, days dry, days to first service, days to conception and times bred this lactation. MIXED models were run for the same factors for the effects of lame amount, lactation number, DIMLTD, and times milked. Days in milk lifetime to date impacted all factors. Times milked did not impact any factor. Lactation number impacted ECM on lame yes no and lame amount. The number of lame events impacted ECM. Days open was impacted by lameness and lactation number when compared for lame yes or no. Days to conception increased with lameness and decreased with increasing lactations. Days to conception was also impacted by amount of lame events. Times bred this lactation was impacted by amount of lame events. Overall, some reproductive measures and milk parameters were impacted by lameness. The association between lameness and production of dairy cattle is important to animal wellbeing and efficiency on the farm.