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Dairy Research Partnership - Phase II
Summary
Profitable, consumer friendly dairy farming is underpinned by good health and welfare.
Through our research partnerships, AHDB Dairy is funding research into specific diseases such as lameness, mastitis, and Johne's Disease, as well as improved strategies for vaccination and biosecurity. Some of the expected outputs will feed directly into programmes such as the AHDB Dairy Mastitis Control Plan and AHDB Dairy Healthy Feet Programme.
Increasingly consumers are interested in the welfare status of production systems. We are also setting out to obtain better data on the incidence and prevalence of key health conditions affecting the GB dairy herd. This will create a baseline, which can be used to measure, direct and communicate future improvements in the health status of the national herd.
Research is being undertaken to devise practical and effective ways of measuring welfare outcomes in dairy cattle. AHDB Dairy is also funding research into the effect of social interaction between cows on health and productivity. This includes specific aspects of management and husbandry, including management group size.
About this project
7.2. Conduct a long term (~3 years) randomised, negatively controlled clinical trial to evaluate the impact of targeted treatment with anti-inflammatories i) after calving and ii) at the time of key lameness events throughout lactation, on an animals long term future of lameness incidence and production
7.3. Provide a detailed characterization of the digital cushion using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and investigate the impact of body condition score and lifetime lameness events on its structure and function to inform prevention strategies
Related research projects
- Whole Farm Feed Efficiency (WFFE) on British Dairy Farms
- Improving the health and performance of GB dairy cows through better copper nutrition
- Low protein diets based on high protein forages for dairy cows
- The future of Dairy Cow Housing (PhD)
- Optimising lying comfort for dairy cows (PhD)
- Consumer perceptions of dairy farming (PhD)
- Continued analysis of the AHDB heifer cohort to evaluate the importance of early life management on the risk of Johne’s disease and support farm-level decisions
- Improving foot health on British dairy farms