Monitoring metabolic disease in dairy cattle

Metabolic profiles refer to diagnosis of metabolic diseases and their risk factors. With that it is need to distinguish whether it is an intensive search for a specific and acute disease or an all-embracing survey of metabolism is focused. In the first case acutely sick or risk standing animals will be picked out and the spectrum of parameters will be limited on a few but expressive parameters. The following procedure is recommended for a general metabolic profile: ten clinically inconspicuous animals were selected from five different states of lactation. These five states cover the period from drying off to the end of the first third of lactation. The urine and blood samples were pooled in every state of lactation to determine a wide spectrum of parameters in the pooled sample at passable expenses. The values determined from the pool correlate to the average values of the single samples and have the same good and diagnostic explanatory power. With the assessment of the parameters closer ranges of references are used than for a single animal because a lower variance of the values can be assumed.