Phil Cardoso, University of Illinois, shared his presentation, “Fine-tuning transition cow care,” with listeners on the monthly Hoard’s Dairyman webinar. He strongly urged producers to limit the change in body condition scores by 0.5 for the entire lactation and dry period. “It is tough, but we really need to minimize the condition shifts.”
Source: Hoard’s Dairyman, September 16, 2016.
Cardoso presented data that challenged widely held beliefs such as milk output, itself, is responsible for negative energy balance after calving. However, he went on to clarify by noting that energy balance depends greatly on dry matter intake. Cardoso stressed that intake from late lactation and through the dry period to calving should not drastically change. The fresh cow needs a running start when she calves and not try to rev up feed intake and then milk production from a standing position.