Prevention of Milk Fever: A Herd Health Approach to Dairy Cow Nutrition

Abstract

Milk fever (parturient paresis-hypocalcemia), a metabolic disease, affects high producing dairy animals usually within one or two days after calving, resulting in a huge reduction in milk production. Therefore, the disease becomes economically important. Hypocalcemia can also be a cause of acidosis, ketosis, mastitis, retained placenta, displaced abomasum and metritis. This article presents a practical, on-farm approach for the prevention of milk fever in dairy cattle.