Benchmarking calf health: Assessment tools for dairy herd health consultancy based on reference values from 730 German dairies with respect to seasonal, farm type, and herd size effects.

ABSTRACT: Good calf health is crucial for a successfully operating farm business and animal welfare on dairy farms. To evaluate calf health on farms and to identify potential problem areas, benchmarking tools can be used by farmers, herd managers, veterinarians, and other advisory persons in the field. However, for calves, benchmarking tools are not yet widely established in practice. This study provides hands-on application for on-farm benchmarking of calf health. Reference values were generated from a large dataset of the "PraeRi" study, including 730 dairy farms with a total of 13,658 examined preweaned dairy calves. At herd level, omphalitis (O, median 15.9%) was the most common disorder, followed by diarrhea (D, 15.4%) and respiratory disease (RD, 2.9%). Abnormal weight bearing (AWB) was rarely

SUBMITTER: Dachrodt L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9539667 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature