Infectious and Metabolic Diseases of Dairy Cattle

Abstract

Progress generally has its price, and for progress in the dairy industry during the past 50 years no exception has been made. Progress in transportation with its improved facilities in railroads, motor vehicles, and airplanes has nmde possible commercialization of the dairy industry by playing a dominan t role in the movement of milk and its products to market and manufactured items back to the farm. At the same time, however, this progress in transportation, in permitting a n e v e r i n c r e a s i n g movement of livestock and their products, has tremendously increased the ease with which infectious diseases of dairy W. D. Pounden catt le have been disseminated. During the same period, progress in breeding for greater milk production has been very successful. However, it has brought sharply into focus the need for concomitant progress in knowledge of dairy herd nutri t ion and management in order to avoid inadequacies as demonstrated by disease conditions like bloat or mastitis or metabolic problems such as parturient paresis or ketosis.