The economics of dairy production.

The structure of the dairy farm industry has been changing rapidly in recent years. Milk production has increased, with dramatic increases in milk produced per cow and with a steep decline in number of milk cows and fewer farms with larger herds. The change in dairy farm size has not been uniform across regions. The growth in farm size has occurred much more rapidly in the Pacific and South regions than in the traditional dairy-producing regions (Upper Midwest, Northeast, and Corn Belt). Using USDA data to examine costs and returns over time reveals that the incentives to produce milk have been much greater in the Pacific and South regions in recent years. Although the cash costs are similar across regions, accounting for all costs including unpaid factors such as labor and capital replacement yields a clear advantage for the Pacific region. Dairy farm size and cost of production are jointly determined. The incentive to increase farm size is derived from the economies of size that may be achieved by spreading the capital, labor, and managerial costs across more units of milk production. Empiric evidence from previous studies indicates a declining cost of production over a large range of herd sizes. Even in the presence of a flat average cost curve, the incentive to maximize farm income provides incentive to increase production. Adjustment costs may fix dairy production facilities in their current use. Those firms facing higher adjustment costs because of individual or regional characteristics or because of different timing of growth will be smaller or grow more slowly than if they faced smaller adjustment costs. This situation may explain the continued lag of farm size and technology adoption in the traditional dairy producing regions relative to the Pacific and South regions where the more recent population growth coincided with the presence of modern, large-scale production technologies. Finally, dairy marketing policies almost certainly have affected the structure and regional pattern of dairy farm size and production. For the most part, however, the policy effects have been of indirect nature. The Pacific region has grown (despite having the lowest average price) by taking advantage of economies of size by specializing in milking cows. The United States dairy industry is a technologically advanced, well-managed, and economically important sector of United States agriculture. Future challenges include the ability to remain viable economically while dealing with environmental and social sustainability issues in the form of new constraints from formal policies and from consumer perceptions.     

Efficacy of tulathromycin in the treatment and prevention of natural outbreaks of bovine respiratory disease in European cattle

The efficacy of tulathromycin in the treatment (phase 1) and prevention (phase 2) of bovine respiratory disease (BRD) was evaluated on commercial farms in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. In phase 1, commingled cattle with clinical BRD were treated with tulathromycin (n = 128) or florfenicol (n = 125) on day 0. Similar percentages of animals showed sustained clinical improvement at day 14 (tulathromycin 83.3% versus florfenicol 81.0%) and had not relapsed by day 60 (tulathromycin 63.3% versus florfenicol 58.4%). In phase 2, healthy in-contact cattle were treated with tulathromycin (n = 492), tilmicosin (n = 494), or saline (n = 265) on day 0. Significantly more (P = .0001) tulathromycin-treated cattle remained healthy to day 14 (92.4%) than tilmicosin-treated (83.7%) or saline-treated (63.7%) cattle, and this was maintained through day 60 (tulathromycin 85.4% versus tilmicosin 75.1% and saline 56.2%). Tulathromycin was highly effective in the treatment and prevention of BRD.     

On the incorporation of<Superscript>32</Superscript>P into the various nucleic acid fractions of rust-infected primary leaves of wheat

³²P administered to wheat plants for 2 h just before inoculation with stem rust, and extracted from the primary leaves 2 and 4 days later, was partly incorporated in highmolecular RNA; the specific activity of this fraction in rust-infected leaves was significantly higher than that in healthy leaves.When administered for 1 1/2 h 2 and 4 days after inoculation and extracted immediately thereafter, large amounts of³²P were incorporated in a polyphosphate fraction; also in this case the specific activity of this fraction was significantly higher in rustinfected leaves than in healthy leaves. It could not be associated with a distinct RNA fraction, nor could short-living m-RNA be detected in other fractions.     

Herd-level risk factors for subclinical Salmonella infection in European finishing-pig herds

Our objective was to find herd factors associated with pigs testing seropositive for Salmonella. Data were collected from 359 finishing-pig herds in Germany, Denmark, Greece, The Netherlands and Sweden, between 1996 and 1998. Pigs fed non-pelleted feed (dry or wet) had 2- and 2.5-times lower odds of seropositivity, compared to pigs fed pelleted feed. The protective effect of non-pelleted feed over pelleted feed may be ascribed to the structure and composition. Also, pigs that were given whey (to drink or as the liquid part of the diet) had 2.6-times lower odds to test seropositive than pigs not getting whey. Pigs produced in batches in herds with hygienic-lock facilities had >3-times lower odds for testing seropositive compared to pigs in herds where only one or neither factor was present. In herds where the caretaker(s) washed hands consistently before tending to the animals, pigs had 1.5-times lower odds of seropositivity than pigs in herds where the caretaker did not. Pigs which were able to have snout contact with pigs in neighbouring pens (because pen separations were either open or too low) had 1.7-times higher odds to test seropositive compared to pigs for which such contact was prevented. Pigs in herds recruiting from more than three supplier herds had three-times higher odds to test seropositive than pigs in herds which breed their own replacement stock or recruit from a maximum of three supplier herds.     

Relationships between lactational incidence of displaced abomasum and milk production traits in German Holstein cows

The objective of this study was to analyse the heritabilitiy of the lactational incidence of displaced abomasum (DA) and the relationships of DA with milk production traits in German Holstein cows. Data were recorded between February 1999 and January 2000 in cooperation with five veterinary practitioners. Their veterinary practices were located in the northern part of Lower Saxony. The investigation included 160 dairy farms under the official milk-recording scheme with 9,315 cows. The lactational incidence of the left abomasal displacement amounted to 1.21%, and of the right abomasal displacement to 0.41%, respectively. The linear heritability estimates for the lactational incidences of left and right DA were h(2) = 0.05 +/- 0.012 and h(2) = 0.004 +/- 0.005, respectively. Using the Dempster-Lerner-transformation the corresponding heritabilities were h(2) = 0.53 and 0.09, respectively. Milk losses for the lactation when DA was diagnosed were significant and reached 1016 kg milk, 41 kg fat, 36 kg protein and 0.07% protein. Fat content significantly increased by 0.18%. The analysis could not show significant differences between cows diagnosed with DA and cows not diagnosed with DA in the 305-day milk production traits of the lactation preceding the diagnosis of DA. There was also no indication for an unequal distribution of breeding values for milk performance traits between cows with and without DA. The additive genetic correlations between 305-day milk performance and left DA were low. The results indicated that cows with a high milk production and superior breeding values for milk performance were not exposed to an increased risk for DA.     

Susceptibility of carnivore hosts to strains of canine distemper virus from distinct genetic lineages

Using the complete haemagglutinin (HA) gene and partial phosphoprotein (P) gene we investigated the genotype of canine distemper virus (CDV) strains recovered from two wildlife species in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Phylogenetic analyses demonstrated significant differences between the strains from raccoons Procyon lotor (family Procyonidae) obtained in 2007 and strains from red foxes Vulpes vulpes (family Canidae) obtained in 2008. The raccoon strains belonged to the CDV European wildlife lineage whereas the red fox strains belonged to the CDV Europe lineage. We combined our genetic sequence data with published data from 138 CDV stains worldwide to investigate the proposed importance of amino acid substitutions in the SLAM binding region of the CDV HA protein at position 530 (G/E to R/D/N) and 549 (Y to H) to the spread of domestic dog-adapted CDV strains to other carnivores. We found no evidence that amino acid 530 was strongly affected by host species. Rather, site 530 was conserved within CDV lineages, regardless of host species. Contrary to expectation, strains from non-dog hosts did not exhibit a bias towards the predicted substitution Y549H. Wild canid hosts were more frequently infected by strains with 549Y, a pattern similar to domestic dogs. Non-canid strains showed no significant bias towards either H or Y at site 549, although there was a trend towards 549H. Significant differences between the prevalence of 549Y and 549H in wild canid strains and non-canid strains suggests a degree of virus adaptation to these categories of host.