Herd Health: The Economic Consequences of Production Diseases in Dairy Farming

To support decisions in the field of animal health on dairy farms, knowledge of the impact of diseases on farm profitability is important. Production diseases on dairy farms decrease the efficiency of milk production, requiring a higher level of input to produce the same amount of milk. The optimal production with and without disease will differ for a specific farm. To estimate the economic effects of a production disease, preventive costs and failure costs can be distinguished. Failure costs are associated with production losses (including milk production decrease, mortality, and culling), treatment costs (including veterinarian, drugs, labor, and discarded milk), and the risk of new cases of disease. Preventive costs are associated with preventive measures (including costs of diagnostics, labor costs, and veterinary service). The total costs of disease can be large, and there is a large variation in costs of disease between farms. Economic calculations to support decision making therefore need a farm-specific approach, where a reduction in failure costs due to implementation of a preventive measure will be compared with the additional costs of that preventive measure.