Evaluation of multifactorial digestive disorders in a dairy herd at different stages of lactation

The manager of a large dairy herd (total confinement, total mixed ration feeding, 10130 kg milk sold per cow and year) requested a workup of a digestive disorder problem that had been ongoing for several years. The cows were at all stages of lactation, and the incidence proportion (events/100 cows at risk) of digestive disorders was approximately 5 to 10%. The clinical picture included an abnormal demeanor of varying severity and signs that differed among the cows. The latter included decreased milk production and physical activity, low body condition score, abnormal rumen motility and stratification, small intestinal dilatation, diarrhea, undigested fiber particles in the feces, fever and abdominal pain.The following approach was used to investigate the digestive disorder problem:1. The herd was assessed for production levels, housing requirements, feeding protocols and animal health management. The latter comprised evaluation of different animal scores, metabolic profile analysis, diagnosis of disease, culling records and slaughter data. The results revealed risk factors concerning the feeding and animal health monitoring, (e. g. in dry matter intake and silage quality management, disease detection and diagnosis in fresh cows). The assessment also identified a high occurrence of digestive disorders of unknown origin.2. Fifteen cows that represented the ongoing digestive disorder problem were selected to undergo clinical examination, hematological analysis, urinalysis, and ultrasonography of the ventral abdomen. The clinical examinations revealed different digestive disorders, which were mainly inflammatory in nature, in all the cows. Eight cows had localized reticuloperitonitis and 13 had left displaced abomasum with different degrees of displacement and adhesions between the abomasum and reticulum attributable to reticuloperitonitis.Our results revealed a multifactorial problem caused by several risk factors relating to animal health and feeding management protocols that resulted in different types of digestive disorders. The wires from damaged tires used to hold the pit silo tarps in place were identified as a possible traumatic cause of the reticuloperitonitis. Treatment, prevention and follow-up of the different conditions were discussed.