High-production dairy cows face severe metabolic challenges around calving that cause significant suffering and are closely linked to management and feeding practices.
The metabolic demands placed on modern high-producing dairy cows exceed what their bodies evolved to handle. The period around calving involves simultaneous nutritional depletion, immune suppression, and the establishment of lactation, creating a perfect storm of metabolic disease risk. Cows experiencing ketosis, milk fever, or other transition diseases suffer painful systemic illness that significantly reduces their quality of life. Prevention through nutrition management, genetic selection for health traits, and close monitoring is both economically and ethically superior to treating disease after it occurs.