Transition Cow Management

Physiological challenges

4 key areas

The transition period is perceived as hugely critical because of the long-term health and productive consequences and getting to the root cause of transition cow challenges is complex and, in most cases, multifactorial. Therefore, it is important to understand the different challenges, how they are caused and the interaction between the different challenges. Effective transition cow programmes will minimise the incidence of metabolic disorders and production diseases.

The transition period is also recognised as a high-risk time for sub-acute ruminal acidosis (SARA). The abrupt change in diet from a high fibre, low starch & sugars diet during the dry period to a low fibre, high starch & sugars diet during early lactation poses a significant challenge to rumen pH and overall rumen health. These suboptimal rumen conditions can lead to other problems such as laminitis, reduced DMI and abomasal displacement/ ulceration (Mulligan et al., 2006). There have been many approaches to lessen the burden of sub-optimal rumen conditions during the transition period such as the gradual introduction of highly fermentable diets after calving, providing additional feed space so cows avoid gorging and the use of dietary supplements, like yeast and buffers, to stabilise rumen pH.

Each of the above four areas are important when considering transition cow programmes and they also need to be considered collectively. For example, rumen health will have a major impact on the incidence of “diet induced inflammation” which in turn may affect the persistence of subclinical milk fever in the days after calving or lead to other metabolic disorders. Horst et al. (2020) proposed that immunoactivation or subacute inflammation was contributing to milk fever and that low levels of circulating Ca in the blood was a consequence of inflammation, in some cases.  Likewise, Ca balance and incidence of milk fever around parturition will have a significant effect on feed intake and subsequent energy balance in early lactation.

, produced by Celtic Sea Minerals, is a marine derived mineral source which is active in typical rumen conditions (pH 5.5 – 6.5) allowing it to act as a very effective tool for stabilising rumen pH and supplying bioavailable minerals to the host animal. Previous research on has confirmed its ability to improve rumen efficiency through stabilising rumen pH (Neville et al., 2019) and increasing the total volatile fatty acid concentration of the rumen fluid (Cruywagen et al., 2015) compared to control diets.

An on-farm experiment conducted on a US dairy and presented at the 2018 ADSA meeting reported that cows supplemented with

before calving increased the concentration of Ca in serum and increased Mg concentration in urine compared to control cows after calving (Ellison et al., 2018). Previous to this, a study by John Bernard and his team at University of Georgia investigated supplementing to cows during the transition period, investigating its potential to influence feed intake and milk production (Wu et al., 2015).

The transition cow requires lots of attention. Many strategies have evolved from research in this area and are already proving effective at farm level in reducing production diseases and metabolic disorders.

is a multifunctioning nutritional solution offering multiple benefits in transition cow diets.

The results of this study and previous studies are specific to

and the positive effects on dairy cow health and performance stem from its unique multi-mineral matrix formed over centuries spent sitting in the pristine waters off the Icelandic coast.