Dairy cattle disease

Author: William C. Rebenhagen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-04-01
Features: The purpose of this book is to provide veterinary students and practicing veterinarians with a reference guide to cow diseases that may be encountered in dairy farms. The author's discussions on the diagnosis, treatment, management, and prevention of each disease not only include information gathered from literature but also incorporate personal experience. It is hoped that by reading this book, readers will gain a broad understanding of cow diseases, avoiding the tendency to diagnose all sick cows solely within a limited range of diseases due to lack of knowledge, or to cull cows simply because veterinarians fail to recognize diseases that are actually treatable. The purpose of writing this book is to provide veterinary students and practicing veterinarians with a reference guide to cow diseases that may be encountered in dairy farms. Due to geographical and management differences, the author's experience is limited to the northeastern United States, so discussions on cow diseases in other regions or countries may not be covered. This book is written from a generalist's perspective, so all chapters except Chapter 15 were written by the author. Chapter 15 was written by Dr. Guard, my colleague, who is not only an author but also a renowned expert in the field of dairy nutrition and metabolic diseases. As a generalist, the author knows that they are not experts in all areas, but they have strived to focus on the most important diseases based on 24 years of experience. The discussions on the diagnosis, treatment, management, and prevention of each disease not only include information gathered from literature but also incorporate the author's personal experience. Recommendations for disease treatment and management may vary or be omitted due to differing experiences, or they may be replaced by the endless progress and discoveries in our field. The author's interest in dairy cows was the driving force behind writing this book on cow diseases. However, another more pressing reason may be the neglect of cow diseases in veterinary student curriculum education and continuing education programs for practicing veterinarians. Due to the need for practicing veterinarians to focus on production-related diseases, nutrition, and computers to adapt to the demands of large dairy farms, small family farms, and the continuously declining profitability of the dairy industry, this neglect is somewhat unavoidable, reducing the time available to learn basic diagnostic, treatment, and prognostic techniques for cow diseases. Therefore, the author hopes this book can serve as a reference for students and practicing veterinarians to master these techniques, and also hopes that by reading this book, they will gain a broad understanding of cow diseases, avoiding the tendency to diagnose all sick cows solely within a limited range of diseases due to lack of knowledge, or to cull cows simply because veterinarians fail to recognize diseases that are actually treatable. Although it is essential to prioritize production-related diseases and correspondingly reduce attention to individual cows, the author still hopes that the highest aspiration of practicing veterinarians is to find infinite joy in being a doctor, which is to make accurate diagnoses when examining sick animals, provide effective treatment, see the animals recover health and productivity, and offer herd disease prevention recommendations to farmers.