Dry Period Management in Dairy Cattle

Dry Period Management in Dairy Cattle

Pushpa Lamba¹* and Vivek Saharan²

1. Department of Livestock Production Management, College of Veterinary and Animal Science, RAJUVAS, Bikaner-334 001, India
2. Department of Animal Nutrition , Lala Lajpat Rai University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Hisar, Haryana

*Correspondence author email: plamba49@gmail.com

Dry Cow is a cow that is not lactating or secreting milk after it has completed a lactation period following calving. Dry period (DP) is also called as resting period in which cow udder is prepared for the next lactation period. Conventionally 60 days dry period is given to cow which helps to adapt the cow to several acute changes in metabolic and physiologic states and diets. DP plays an imperative role in restoring the body condition score of the cow as well as for replacing senescent mammary epithelium cells.

Purpose of dry period :

• Prepare the digestive tract for next lactation.
• To properly nourish the developing calf.
• To maintain optimum body condition.
• To minimize digestive, metabolic and infectious diseases.

Methods of drying off

• Abrupt cessation of milking
• Milk for 305-day lactation and then stop milking.
• Infuse with Dry Cow Therapy .
• Abrupt cessation method is the better one, but not for high yielders.
• Incomplete milking
• Emptying smaller and smaller quantities of milk from the udder spread over a week.
• Best method for high yielder cow other wise may cause swelling and pen in the udder.
• Intermittent milking
• Milking once every second or third day.
• This method is preferred for cows already having

Important points to remember during dry period

• Conventionally 60 days dry period but it can be modified as for Primiparous : 50-60 days and Multiparous : 35-45 days.
• Ideally, concentrate should be eliminated about 1-2 weeks before the dry off day.
• Provide balanced ration (including vitamins and minerals) to dry cows and care of animals should be done in such a way that they should not lose body condition during this time. Losing body conditions during the dry period makes the animal more susceptible to periparturient disorders, such as fatty liver and ketosis, which can act as a main impetus in reducing milk production in the next lactation.
• The body condition should be maintain at 3 to 4 (3.3 to 3.7). If BCS is maintained at the time of dry-off, then animals should gain about 300 to 500 gm/day to increase BCS by 0.25 to 0.35 units during the early-dry period. Therefore, improving the energy balance in transition period can reduce the incidence of periparturient disorders and decreases the mobilization of fat and reduces the negative energy balance.
• Controlled-energy , high-fiber diets should be provided as it has many benefits like

1. No loss in milk production
2. Lower NEFA BHBA and liver fat
3. Positive effect on reproduction
4. Body condition score maintained

• Over feeding with high energy diet should be avoided as prolonged over consumption of energy during the dry period can result  in poorer transition such as lower post-calving dry matter intake and slower starts in milk production.
• The optimum CP requirement for early dry period should be 12-13 CP%
• Calcium does not have to be increased beyond 0.6% of dry matter.
• Dry cow therapy should be given : Therapy of mastitis directly through the effect of the antibiotic and indirectly by promoting the formation of natural keratin plug.

Advantages of dry cow therapy

1. Higher cure rates than lactation .
2. Retention time of antibiotic in the udder is longer.
3. Incidence of new infections during the dry period is reduced.
4. Damaged tissue is allowed to redevelop before freshening.

.https://afs.ca.uky.edu/content/dairy-dry-period-an-important-phase-for-a-dairy-cow

https://www.pashudhanpraharee.com/dry-period-management-in-dairy-cows/

Please follow and like us: