RECENT ADVANCES IN PREVENTION OF PARTURIENT PARESIS IN DAIRY-COWS

Parturient paresis, commonly known as milk fever, is a hypocalcemic di sorder associated with parturition and initiation of lactation in dair y cows. The disorder occurs when the use of calcium from the blood cal cium pool exceeds input of calcium absorbed from the gut and mobilized from bone. The precise metabolic defect in calcium metabolism remains to be defined. Parturient paresis affects about 5% to 9% of dairy cow s in the United States; treatment of the disorder can be inconvenient and costly. During the past decade, significant progress has been made in investigation of methods to prevent the disorder. Restricting calc ium intake before parturition to less than 20 grams per cow daily prev ents the problem but this method is highly impractical, and applicatio n is limited by the relatively high calcium content of common feedstuf fs for dairy cows.