Ketosis could be a costly disease on the dairy

Ketosis is a metabolic disease frequently seen in high-producing dairy cows a few weeks after they give birth.

There is clinical and subclinical ketosis. With subclinical ketosis there may not be any sign of the disease, but with clinical ketosis, symptoms can range from low blood glucose to neurological symptoms. Estimates vary on the incidence of ketosis. Clinical ketosis ranges from 2 percent to 15 percent of birthing cows and subclinical from 9 percent to 34 percent.

Veterinarian Joe Korn, with Mid-Valley Veterinary Hospital in Orland, said ketosis is most readily seen during the first two or three weeks of lactation.

Essentially the last two to three weeks of pregnancy and the first two to three weeks after calving, the cow doesn't have a good appetite, Korn said. At the same time, the cow's milk production is rising rapidly until she reaches her peak of milk production and then she gradually starts decreasing milk production.

With milk production going from zero to possibly over a 100 pounds within just a few days and feed intake decreasing, the cow is susceptible to ketosis, Korn said. Eventually she will get back in positive energy balance, and she will begin to gain back the weight that she has lost, but there will be lost milk production, too, Korn said.

With subclinical ketosis the cow won't necessarily appear sick, but she might not produce as much milk. The only sign is that the rumen contractions may be weak, Korn said.

"That's why it's so dangerous. It's like the silent killer," Korn said.

Clinical ketosis is just the opposite, and it has a variety of symptoms that include excess ketone bodies in blood and urine, dull staring looks, sunken eyes, loss of appetite, reduced milk production, and in severe cases, neurological signs.

More common symptoms are dull staring looks and sunken eyes.

"Most dairy producers know that. They can recognize ketotic cows," Korn said adding that all vital signs would be normal.

An unusual odor on the cow's breath and in her milk is also commonly seen.

"It smells like acetone and some people have more sensitive noses than others to that," Korn explained, adding the cow secretes the acetone, and it's in the urine, the blood and the milk.

In rare cases neurological symptoms will occur, starting with the cow becoming stiff and agitated.

"They can even be mean. They can attack you, or they can be down on the ground just twitching in convulsions," Korn said, but he's only seen this two or three times.

If the disease goes untreated and the animal is really clinically sick, it could die, Korn said.

"It also can cause other diseases, or be part of a syndrome of other diseases. But usually a cow with clinical ketosis, if it's not too severe, will come back and be healthy again. But in the meantime the dairy producer has lost lots of milk," Korn said.

Providing high-quality feed during the transition period will help prevent ketosis.

"These cows should have the best, freshest, highest quality feed. It should be so good and fresh it attracts them," Korn said, adding it should be so tempting, it stimulates the cow to eat a little bit where she wouldn't have otherwise.

The feed should be fresh, too.

"Don't feed once every two days and let it just sit there. Feed it often, fresh," Korn stressed, and avoid overcrowding, so they aren't competing for the food.

Some dairy producers actually put propylene glyol, which is used to treat ketosis, in the feed during the first two weeks, Korn said. While it lowers clinical ketosis, it may not be cost effective.

"You're treating all the cows, and that's a pretty high expense, but not all the cows probably need it," Korn said. "On the other side, you test and only treat the ones that need it, but testing takes time and labor, too. That's why it's not a clear-cut black and white answer, and it's different for every dairy.

"You could say there's one universal truth in dairies, that there's no universal truth. Every dairy is like an ecosystem. You have different environmental conditions, different feed, different labor conditions," Korn said.

There are three types of testing: milk, urine and blood. Milk testing is faster and easier to use than urine testing, but the milk strips are more expensive, Korn said.

"Everyone knows how to get a little bit of milk out of the udder, but not everybody knows how to get a catheter into the urethra and get urine," Korn said, but he anticipates the price of the milk strip will drop eventually.

Blood is the most accurate form of testing, but the urine and milk tests are almost as good, and more cost effective, Korn said.

To find out the extent of ketosis on the dairy, Korn suggests testing for two months. Test every cow that's one week fresh, keep records of the test results, and by the end of two months, you will have a picture of how big a problem ketosis is on the dairy, he said.

"If you're milking a 1,000 cows, and you have maybe 2 percent or something, it may not even be worth it for you to test," Korn said.

On the other hand, some producers will be surprised, Korn said.

"They'll have maybe 30 percent, 40 percent, and all of those cows could get him a lot more milk," he said.

What a producer has to determine is whether the testing will pay for itself in increased production, Korn said.

"In the course of the lactation he may get 600 or 1,000 pounds more milk by just a simple treatment that's not very expensive," he said.

(Kathy Coatney is a reporter in Corning. She may be contacted at kacoatney@gmail.com.)