Milk fever (hypocalcemia) is a painful metabolic disease affecting dairy cows at calving, causing muscle weakness and collapse that carries serious welfare implications.
A downer cow - unable to rise, lying in discomfort, potentially with pressure sores developing from prolonged recumbency - represents one of the most distressing welfare situations on a dairy farm. Milk fever causes this within hours of calving if untreated. While clinical milk fever responds well to intravenous calcium supplementation, the welfare impact during the period before treatment is significant and prevention is strongly preferable. Subclinical hypocalcemia, affecting far more cows without visible symptoms, suppresses immunity and increases susceptibility to mastitis, metritis and displaced abomasum - creating a cascade of welfare problems that begin invisibly. Prevention through dry cow nutrition management is the welfare-optimal approach.