The advent of rumen activity monitoring has provided a window into the inner functions of dairy-cow digestion and allowed for early identification of important health and behavior events.
Research using rumen activity monitoring has shown that reductions in rumination time (RT) can be predictive of events such as calving; painful illness (such as acute clinical mastitis and pneumonia); heat stress; and estrus. Now, researchers are investigating whether rumination behavior in the dry period could serve as a reliable indicator for predicting common diseases in the early postpartum period.
Several studies have examined variations in dry-cow rumination time and the subsequent outcomes tied to that activity after calving. Among them are:
- A 32-cow study (Soriani et al. 2012) that divided pre-calving rumination time into longer, middle, and shorter groups. Cows in the shorter rumination group showed a greater increase in Ɓ-hydroxybutyrate after calving, an indicator of subclinical ketosis (hyperketonemia). Those cows also had a higher incidence of clinical diseases – including mastitis, lameness, ketosis, and displaced abomasum – and decreased rumination time after calving.
- A 339-cow study (Kaufman et al. 2016) in which cows were monitored for rumination activity and subclinical ketosis from 14 d before calving until 28 d after calving. The results showed reduced rumination time in multiparous cows diagnosed with ketosis postpartum compared to cows that remained healthy during the transition period. Rumination time was shown to be even less in multiparous cows that experienced both subclinical ketosis plus additional postpartum health events like retained placenta, metritis, milk fever (hypocalcemia), and/or mastitis.
- A retrospective study (Abuelo et al. 2021) that evaluated rumination data from 2,258 cows around dry-off. The researchers explored RT in the weeks before and after dry-off between cows that did and did not experience health disorders (mastitis, metritis, retained placenta, hyperketonemia, lameness, milk fever, pneumonia, and displaced abomasum) in early lactation. Results showed that dry-off can be a stressful event for dairy cows associated with decreased rumination time for several days. They found association between reduced rumination time around dry-off and some early lactation diseases, suggesting that this behavior could serve as a valuable tool for identifying at-risk cows early enough to enable preventive interventions.
- A 536-cow study (Santos et al. 2024) that investigated the associations between rumination time in the last week of pregnancy and transition-cow metabolism, inflammation, and health events, along with subsequent milk production, reproduction, and removal from the herd. The researchers found that rumination time in the week preceding calving was a plausible predictor of postpartum health and future milk production, reproduction, and removal from the herd in multiparous cows, but not in first-calf heifers.
Understanding the link between rumination behavior and subsequent health and production enables early interventions, improving fresh cows’ launch into lactation. Monitoring rumination during the dry and transition periods can help producers and their advisors identify at-risk cows and implement preventive measures against common disorders of the transition period.
“Rumination monitoring during the dry and transition period can be a useful tool to help producers identify cows that may be at risk for fresh-cow issues,” says Tiago Tomazi, DVM, M.Sc, Ph.D., Merck Animal Health technical services veterinarian. “Using data on rumination time, dairy producers and their advisors can develop protocols for early interventions to set at-risk cows up for success.”
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