Cows

Maternity

The maternity phase of a cow's life is probably the most critical. This is the time when cows are being prepared to be milked and to provide live calves that will be future replacements or marketable bull calves. During the maternity phase, important goals include:

• Providing a clean comfortable place where the cows can calve
• Maintaining an excellent nutrition program that reduces the chance of metabolic disorders.
• Using good sanitation to prevent post calving infections. Remember, even the best nutrition and vaccination can be overshadowed by poor sanitation.

As with any good disease prevention effort, the focus during the maternity phase is on lowering exposure to disease-causing agents and increasing immunity. Exposure can be lowered with dry, uncrowded conditions. Immunity can be increased with nutrition and vaccination.

While bedding for calving cows can be a variety of types of materials, the essential criteria is that the material is dry. Many cases of mastitis occur during the last three weeks prior to calving. Environment plays a big role in this. Even though you'll read articles and studies recommending increasing Vitamin E in the close up pen to prevent mastitis and reduce retained placentas, this does NOT substitute for good sanitation. If maternity pens are dirty and crowded, the chance of infections and poor calf health are high, even with other good preventive practices.