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Dairy monitoring tech provides insights into HPAI

Herd health monitoring technology is helping researchers better understand how H5N1 Influenza A affects dairy cattle.

Michigan State University Extension’s Phil Durst tells Brownfield, “Those monitoring tools, whether it’s an ear tag, whether it’s a neck tag, or whether it’s a rumen bolus, certainly have been able to show us before we can see a problem.”

He says a 500-cow dairy that first detected the disease in early May has become a case study for the state. The farm is sharing data collected by rumen monitoring devices that are traditionally used for heat detection.

“It monitors temperature in the animal as well as water intake, and so that kind of data has shown us exactly what’s going on with individual animals,” he shares.

Early data shows animals that had about a five-degree spike in body temperature nearly stopped ruminating within six hours and production declined for at least the next 15 days.

“His cost in the first 14 to 15 days of that disease to be $30-$40,000,” he says. “So on a thousand cow basis, we’re talking $60-$80,000 in the first two weeks.”

Durst says about 40 percent of that milking herd was likely impacted.

He says early indicators are allowing farmers to start supportive therapies for animals like vitamin B or aspirin before more noticeable signs of the virus are seen, and cows are able to recover quicker.

AUDIO: Phil Durst