The Farmers Mart Oct/Nov 2014 - Issue 36 | Page 44

CATTLE

Ketosis
Monitoring:
early diagnosis
is essential
Continuing our series of articles
from the renowned Scarsdale
Veterinary Group, this month we
hear from Oli Maxwell on the subject
of Ketosis Monitoring in dairy cows.

Oli Maxwell BVSc BSc
(Hons) MRCVS is a
Nottingham Vet School
Resident who spends 50%
of his time at Scarsdale,
having joined the farm
team in the Summer of
2012.
Oli is working towards the
European Diploma in Bovine
Health Management. He
is particularly interested in
lameness and when he isn’t
working, he likes nothing more
than to zoom off into the hills
on his motorbike!
The risks
We all know that high
yielding cows are going to be
at a significantly increased
risk of ketosis. There is
no getting away from it; it
doesn’t matter how good
your forage is, some cows
will produce more than
they can the energy in their

feed can account for. The
importance of monitoring
ketone levels in freshly calved
cows cannot be overplayed
and in order to do this there
are a variety of methods to
test milk, blood and urine
for levels of ketones (betahydroxybutyrate or BOHBs).
This is a quick guide to the
main ones out there.
Ketone meters
Just like glucometers for
people with diabetes, ketone
meters use disposable strips
to measure ketone levels in
the blood. They are very quick,
reliable and give a number
value to the level of ketones
in the cow but they do require
confidence in drawing blood
which can be a risky business
(we have seen some nasty
abscesses on tails where
they weren’t cleaned properly
before sampling).

Keto-stix
There are a few of these on
the market – we recommend
Keto-Test strips which we keep
in stock. They work on milk (or
in urine though we generally
find milk is easier to get) and
give a fairly accurate reading
based on a colour change
scale. They are not as precise
as the ketone meters but they
are more than adequate at
distinguishing unaffected, subclinical and clinical cows.

‘effective at
distinguishing
ketotic cows’
Rotheras reagent
This may be considered an
old-fashioned solution but it is
still effective. Rotheras reagent
is an off-white powder which,
when mixed with ketotic milk
or urine, turns purple. It has
largely been dropped due to
the simplicity and popularity of
the keto-stix and ketone meters
but it is still available and is
effective at distinguishing
ketotic cows; it does not,
however, distinguish between
varying concentrations
effectively.

Fat: protein ratio
Those who milk record will be
familiar with this concept. High
ratios of milk fat to milk protein
have been associated with
Ketosis in cows and very high
levels have been associated
with held cleansings, LDAs
and whites. Ratios over 1.2
are considered abnormal
however care must be taken
when looking at these figures
as up to 20% of the herd can
be abnormally high without
being ketotic. The only place
this information is available,
however, is in the milk
recording data making it a little
inaccessible for the individual
cow, although as a herd health
monitoring tool it may have
some benefits.
Whichever monitoring tool
you choose, the important
thing is to test fresh cows
regularly – ideally, a proportion
of cows at 10-14 days calves
should be tested every month.
The results should be recorded
(we can provide recording
sheets) and then reviewed with
your vet at the routine visit.
This means that any changes
in m [