The validity of a monitoring system based on routinely collected dairy cattle health data relative to a standardized herd check

Dairy cattle health is often assessed during farm visits. However, farm visits are time consuming and cattle health is assessed at only one point in time. Moreover, farm visits are poorly comparable and/or repeatable when inspection is carried out by many different professionals. Many countries register cattle health parameters such as bulk milk somatic cell count (BMSCC) and mortality in central databases. A great advantage of such routinely available data is that they are uniformly gathered and registered throughout time. This makes comparison between dairy cattle herds possible and could result in opportunities to develop reliable tools for assessing cattle health based on routinely available data. In 2005, a monitoring system for the assessment of cattle health in Dutch dairy herds based on routinely available data was developed. This system had to serve as an alternative for the compulsory quarterly farm visits, which were implemented in 2002. However, before implementation of the alternative system for dairy cows, the validity of the data-based monitoring system and the compulsory quarterly visits relative to the real health status of the herd should be known. The aim of this study was to assess the validity of the data-based monitoring system and the compulsory quarterly visits relative to a standardized herd check for detecting dairy herds with health problems. The results showed that routinely available data can be used to develop an effective screening instrument for detecting herds with poor cattle health. Routinely available data such as cattle mortality and BMSCC that were used in this study had a significant association with animal-based measurements such as the general health impression of the dairy cows (including e.g. rumen fill and body condition). Our study supports the view that cattle health parameters based on routinely available data can serve as a tool for detecting herds with a poor cattle health status which can reduce the number of expensive farm visits. Veterinarians and other herd health advisors could use this tool to target visits to those farms that are identified as at risk for poor cattle health. The development of similar tools in other countries seems possible because many countries have similar data in central databases.