Abstract
Simple SummaryCalving is a difficult moment in a cow’s life that causes stress, and the ease of calving determines the course of further lactation. The hypothesis of our study was to investigate how the difficulty of calving may influence changes in lactose concentration and other milk components and how well these two factors correlate between each other. We found a statistically significant (p < 0.001) negative correlation of calving ease score with milk lactose % (r = −0.376) and positive correlation coefficients with milk lactose yield (kg) (r = 0.277) as well as milk fat/lactose % ratio (r = 0.191). The analysis showed a regular increase (p < 0.001) with decreasing calving ease scores for milk electric conductivity and milk somatic cell count.The aim of our study was to determine how the ease of calving of cows may influence changes in lactose concentration and other milk components and whether these two factors correlate with each other. To achieve this, we compared data of calving ease scores and average percentage of in-line registered milk lactose and other milk components. A total of 4723 dairy cows from nine dairy farms were studied. The cows were from the second to the fourth lactation. All cows were classified according to the calving ease: group 1 (score 1)—no problems; group 2 (score 2)—slight problems; group 3 (score 3)—needed assistance; group 4 (score 4)—considerable force or extreme difficulty. Based on the data from the milking robots, during complete lactation we recorded milk indicators: milk yield MY (kg/day), milk fat (MF), milk protein (MP), lactose (ML), milk fat/lactose ratio (MF/ML), milk protein/lactose ratio (MP/ML), milk urea (MU), and milk electrical conductivity (EC) of all quarters of the udder. According to the results, we found that cows that had no calving difficulties, also had higher milk lactose concentration. ML > 4.7% was found in 58.8% of cows without calving problems. Cows with more severe calving problems had higher risk of mastitis (SCC and EC). Our data indicates that more productive cows have more calving problems compared to less productive ones.
Highlights
Calving is a hazardous moment in a cow’s life that causes stress, that, the ease of calving determines the course of further lactation
Data from several studies indicate that dystocia may cause a number of adverse consequences, such as loss of production related to decreased milk yield [9], decreased milk protein, fat and lactose as well as increased somatic cell counts in milk [10]
The analysis showed that the milk fat (MF) to ML ratio increased as the cows’ calving ease (CE) scores deteriorated and calving problems increased
Summary
Calving is a hazardous moment in a cow’s life that causes stress, that, the ease of calving determines the course of further lactation. Dystocia is a prolonged and difficult calving where a veterinary intervention is required. The assessment of the severity of dystocia is not well defined, but most sources provide a dystocia scoring system from 0 to 4 or from 0 to 5 score, where 0 is easy calving and no intervention is needed, and 4–5 is very difficult calving when veterinary help is needed [2]. The main risk factors for difficult calving (dystocia) are associated with proximal or immediate causes such as feto-pelvic disproportion; uterine inertia; fetal malposition; vulval or cervical stenosis; uterine torsion [3,4,5,6,7]. Cows that suffered from dystocia, the risk for various diseases after calving, such as retained placenta, ketosis, metritis, displacement of abomasum, or mastitis increases [2,8]. Problematic calving and subsequent consequences have been found to affect the fertility of cows negatively [10]
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