Mortality, Culling by Sixty Days in Milk, and Production Profiles in High- and Low-Survival Pennsylvania Herds

• Published in: Journal of dairy science 2008-12, Vol.91 (12), p.4630-4639
• Main Authors: Dechow, C.D., Goodling, R.C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: animal injuries; Animal productions; animal welfare; Animals; Biological and medical sciences; calving; calving date; Cattle - physiology; culling; culling (animals); dairy cows; dairy herd management; dairy herds; Dairying - methods; Female; Food industries; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; lactation; Lactation - physiology; lactation curve; lactation stage; Milk - chemistry; Milk - secretion; Milk and cheese industries. Ice creams; milk fat percentage; milk protein percentage; milk yield; Mortality; Pennsylvania; somatic cell count; Survival Analysis; Terrestrial animal productions; Time Factors; Vertebrates
• ISSN: 0022-0302; 1525-3198
• DOI: 10.3168/jds.2008-1337

The objectives were to describe culling patterns and reasons for culling across lactation, estimate mortality and the proportion of cows leaving from 21 d before an expected calving date through 60 d in milk (DIM; CULL60) for Pennsylvania (PA) dairy herds, and to describe production measures for herds with high and low mortality and CULL60. Weekly culling frequencies and reasons for culling from 3 wk before a reported expected calving date through ≥100 wk of lactation were calculated for all PA cows with at least 1 Dairy Herd Improvement test in 2005. It was estimated that at least 5.0% of PA dairy cows died in 2005, and that at least 7.6% were culled by 60 DIM. The majority of cows exiting the herd by 60 DIM either died (35.1%) or had a disposal code of injury/other (29.9%). A total of 137,951 test-day records from 20,864 cows in herds with high mortality (>8.0%) and CULL60 (>12.0%) and 136,906 test-day records from 12,993 cows in herds with low mortality (