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There’s a fly that hangs around cows at milking and it’s irritating to both humans and bovines, writes vet Lisa Whitfield.

Keeping calves with mum until weaning is part of a study of alternative rearing systems. By Anne Lee.

Twenty years ago understanding of cow comfort was very different – there were virtually no scientific standards to measure well-being in farm animals. This encouraged Boehringer Ingelheim to study the impact of their long-acting anti-inflammatory pain relief Metacam® on reducing the pain associated with these essential farming procedures.

Experience with organic free-range poultry has led a former Hawke’s Bay share-milking couple to breeding pedigree Jersey cows. Words and photos Anne Hardie.

Manawatu vet Lisa Whitfield outlines the ways to check whether your calves are sick.

Kaipara vet Rory Dean worked through the theory and the practical systems to prevent milk fever with sharemikers Joe and Danielle Kehely resulting in a staggeringly low milkfever incidence of three cases (0.57%) after calving 550 cows compared to last season’s case load of 6.1%.

NZ livestock systems are reliant on internationally produced feed. This represents a risk especially to the profitability and sustainability of the dairy industry. By Raewyn Densley, Jeremy Hunt, Lauren McEldowney, Phil Journeaux, Julian Reti Kaukau.

On-Farm Research at the Poukawa Research Farm did much pioneering research on calf rearing from the mid 1990s, rearing about 8000 calves across a wide range of trials. Paul Muir offers his thoughts on what is still relevant to current calf rearers

Failure of calves to get sufficient colostrum and acquire early immunity is a world-wide problem, Paul Muir writes.

Researchers have taken a look at dairy farming from the cows’ perspective. By Elaine Fisher