Health and performance of dairy cows in organic farming from an interdisciplinary point of view – an (intervention-) study on metabolic disorders and mastitis with regard to forage production, feeding management and husbandry practices

Autor: Abograra, I; Aulrich, K.; Barth, K.; Becker, M.; Berendonk, C.; Bormann, A.; Böhm, H.; Brinkmann, J.; Dittmann, L.; Drerup, C.; Haufe, H.; Harms, J; Isselstein, J; Klocke, D; Klocke, P.; Knappstein, K.; Krömker, V.; Lange, G.; Müller, J.; March, S.
Herausgeber: Barth, K.
Urheber: Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft
Seite: 1 - 211
Jahr: 2014

Einordung:
Institut: Professur Grünland- und Futterbauwissenschaften

Abstract:
This project focused on the development for metabolic disorders and udder health in organic dairy farms and to validate this approach trough an interdisciplinary on-farm intervention study. Thus, the project consisted of two parts: The main part was a nationwide field survey on 106 German farms and this was complemented by experimental studies carried out on research stations. The whole project considered production systems and plant composition of feed from grassland and ley farming, composition of feed rations, feed quality, housing conditions and milk quality and their relationship to the metabolic and udder health situation on the farms. Scientists of different disciplines estimated the individual risks of each participating farm, identified the potential for improvement and deduced recommendations, which were implemented afterwards. The effectiveness of this prevention-orientated herd health management was verified using key figures of metabolic and udder health. It could be shown that by this approach the status of animal health can be improved also under practical conditions. The experimental studies concerned the analysis of protein in feedstuff, the amount of concentrate feed, appropriate breeds for organic dairy farming, intramammary infections, the use of selection gates to allow group feeding in small dairy herds, and the improvement of grassland. The gained results were disseminated using different kinds of knowledge transfer like local workshops addressing farmers and practitioners as well as scientific conferences. A compendium of metabolic and udder health in organic farming and a modular knowledge transfer concept were developed for further use of the project results.

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