Abstract
BackgroundGood animal health is a notion that is germane to organic dairy production, and it is expected that such herds would pay significant attention on the health of their animals. However, it is not known if the applied animal disease management is actually more adequate in organic dairy cattle herds than in conventional dairy herds. A questionnaire study on biosecurity and animal disease management activities was therefore conducted among Swedish farmers with organic and conventional dairy cattle herds.ResultsA total of 192 useable questionnaires were returned; response rates of 30.3 and 20.2% for organic and conventional farmers, respectively. Herd characteristics of the two herd types were very similar, except that pipeline/tie-stall systems were less common in organic farms and that organic farmers had a higher education level than their conventional counterparts. Also, very few systematic differences in general or specific disease management activities were observed between the two types of farms. The main exceptions being how milk from cows during antibiotic treatment was used, views on policy actions in relation to antibiotic use, and attitudes towards calling for veterinary support. Using milk from cows during antibiotic treatment was more common in conventional herds, although it was mainly given to bull calves. Farmers of organic herds were more positive to policy actions to reduce the use and need for antibiotics, and they reported waiting longer before contacting a veterinarian for calves with diarrhoea and cows with subclinical mastitis.ConclusionsThe stated biosecurity and animal disease management was relatively equal in Swedish organic and conventional dairy herds. Our results thus indicate that animal health is as important in conventionally managed dairy herds in Sweden as in organically managed herds.
Highlights
Good animal health is a notion that is germane to organic dairy production, and it is expected that such herds would pay significant attention on the health of their animals
The two types were similar in all aspects, except that organic farms used pipeline/ tie-stall systems to a much lower degree and that a higher proportion of the organic farmers had post-secondary school education than the conventional farmers
The two types were similar, except that a larger proportion of conventional farmers fed milk from cows during antibiotic treatment to calves and answered “other” for the use of such milk compared to organic farmers
Summary
Good animal health is a notion that is germane to organic dairy production, and it is expected that such herds would pay significant attention on the health of their animals. It is not known if the applied animal disease management is more adequate in organic dairy cattle herds than in conventional dairy herds. Studies on animal disease in dairy cattle herds have shown somewhat divergent results, but there has generally not been any major or consistent advantage for organic over conventional production [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12].
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