Netherlands: Bluetongue costs kilos of milk per cow per day

This is evident from an analysis of the impact of the bluetongue serotype 3 outbreak on dairy farms by Royal GD. Since the first outbreak in September, more than 2,200 companies have reported bluetongue symptoms in cattle. Another thousand dairy farms have reported symptoms in another species, almost always sheep. In the areas where bluetongue infections had been diagnosed, there was a decline in milk yield. The analysis shows a link between the degree of infection and the decline in milk yield. Nine to ten weeks The decline was greatest on dairy farms that reported bluetongue symptoms. In the area where the first reports of bluetongue were made, there was even a decline in milk production of 1 to 1.5 kilos per cow per day. The decline in milk production lasted for nine to ten weeks. Normally, milk production always drops slightly in the autumn. It was striking that milk production before the bluetongue outbreak was actually higher than the average of the three previous years. ...