Limiting factors of cows’ productive longevity on the industrial complex

Abstract

The research was carried out in the conditions of a large industrial complex ‟Agro-Soyuz” of the Dnipropetrovsk region for the production of the milk from Holstein cows. It has been established that due to ineffective management decisions in the industrial complex, animals leave the herd annually because of metabolic disorders and operational risks with certain dynamics depending on age. It was found that the stimulation of lactogenic function in cows with an increased rate of concentrated feed causes some metabolic disorders, which account for 30.4% of the total number of non-infectious diseases and animals retirement from the herd. It is characteristic that metabolic disorders are observed almost to the same extent in first-calf heifers and in older lactation cows. At the same time, the displacement of the abomasum in animals of the third and fourth lactations under the conditions of an industrial complex was not observed, and depletion of the body (cachexia) was characteristic of first-calf heifers, which among metabolic disorders occupied 33.3%. Cows of the fourth lactation did not suffer from enteritis. Because of adipose tissue purulent inflammation (phlegmon), an average of 5.92% of cows were eliminated from the herd. As the animals age, there was an increase in extremities disease and a decrease in the incidence of hypogalactia. It has been proven that first-calf heifers were more sensitive to mastitis of the udder than older animals. Young cows left the herd due to mastitis at the level of 17.16%, while for hypogalactia - only 7.5%. Through exploitation risks, an average of 27.04% of animals are leaving the herd annually, and this indicator grows with age: if the first-heifers are leaving at the level of 23.13%, then the cows of the second lactation were culled at the level of 28.57%, the third and fourth – respectively 30.56 and 29.41%.

Keywords

• cows
• holstein breed
• non-infectious diseases
• culling