Graduate student literature review: Integrating concepts of animal welfare and health-related quality of life for pre-weaned dairy calves.

Dairy calf welfare assessment tools focusing on the pre-weaning period have been proposed in recent research. Despite the existence of these tools, assessing the welfare and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of dairy calves remains challenging. These difficulties may stem from the complexity of assessing all dimensions of calf welfare and the validity, reliability, and feasibility of the indicators used in assessment tools.

Usefulness of differential somatic cell count for udder health monitoring: association of differential somatic cell count and somatic cell score with quarter-level milk yield and milk components.

Mastitis is the most common disease affecting dairy cattle and is associated with substantial milk loss. Somatic cell count (SCC) has been widely used as an indicator of udder inflammation (e.g.

Usefulness of differential somatic cell count for udder health monitoring: effect of intramammary infections, days in milk, quarter location, and parity on quarter-level differential somatic cell count and somatic cell score in apparently healthy dairy cows.

Microbial infections of the mammary gland often cause mastitis, and it can lead to substantial economic losses within the dairy industry due to its direct negative impact on milk production and composition and the associated treatment costs. Somatic cell count has emerged as a critical indicator in monitoring udder health, and recently, the large-scale availability of differential cell count analysis potentially offers new insights into underlying physiological processes. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to estimate the variation of DSCC and SCC of individual quarter-level milk samples of cows according to 1) their intramammary infectious status; 2) parity of the cow; 3) quarter location; and 4) DIM at the time of sampling.

Usefulness of differential somatic cell count for udder health monitoring: Identifying referential values for differential somatic cell count in healthy quarters and quarters with subclinical mastitis.

Mastitis, an inflammation of the udder primarily caused by an intramammary infection, is one of the most common diseases in dairy cattle. Somatic cell count (SCC) has been widely used as an indicator of udder inflammation, assisting in the detection of subclinical mastitis. More recently, differential somatic cell count (DSCC), which represents the combined proportion of lymphocytes and polymorphonuclear leukocytes, has become available for routine dairy milk screening, though it was not yet widely studied.

Usefulness of differential somatic cell count for udder health monitoring: Diagnostic performance of somatic cell count, and differential somatic cell count for diagnosing of intramammary infections in dairy herds with automated milking systems.

Mastitis poses significant economic challenges for dairy farms. Therefore, enhancing the accuracy of diagnostic methods for detecting intramammary infections (IMI) can potentially improve prevention, control and treatment strategies. The somatic cell count (SCC) is a well-established parameter for identifying inflammation resulting from IMI.