On dairy farms, we rely on multiple experts to make sure our cows and our land are well taken care of. Just like dogs and cats, our cows also have a veterinarian. But instead of loading up the cows and heading into the clinic as we would with our pet, our herd veterinarian comes to the farm. Our vet is an integral part of our team here at Majestic Crossing.
Every Monday and Tuesday morning our veterinarian comes out to our farms to do what we call “Herd Health”. Each week we go through a list of cows and check them for pregnancy. It’s important for our cows to be in excellent physical health so that they can get pregnant and successfully carry their calf to term. Pregnancy is a part of the lactation cycle for the cows, and so we pay a lot of attention to our cow’s reproductive health. Our vet uses ultrasound to not only diagnose pregnancy but also to let us know if a cow is having any reproductive troubles.
In addition to pregnancy checking our vet also helps us to take care of any cows that are sick or injured beyond what we can do. We’ve worked with our current veterinary clinic for over 20 years and they’ve spent a lot of time talking with us and teaching us, so we are pretty good at taking care of cows, but sometimes we need extra help. Our main vet for herd health is Dr. Brandon from Dairy Doctors, but they have doctors available 24/7 in case of emergencies. On occasion, we will have a difficult calving or a cow that needs help and we will call for help.
We also work with our veterinarians to develop our vaccination schedule and treatment protocols. Once a year we do an audit of cow care and sit down with our vet and our field representative from our cheese plant and go over what we are doing, what is working well, and what we could improve on. Then we make whatever changes we need to our protocols based on our collaborative input.
While the technology we have available to help us care for cows has changed a lot from when I was a kid, the partnership between dairy farmers and veterinarians is still incredibly important. I am glad to have Dr. Brandon as part of our team.