A health program for commercial dairy herds. 1. Objectives and methods.

A health program for dairy herds is defined as a planned and coordinated approach to achieving and maintaining optimal health and productive efficiency of livestock. A program is described, which has been developed over a period of eight years to fulfill this definition in providing veterinary services to commercial dairy herds. It is demonstrated that clinical veterinary services to participating herds did not satisfactorily achieve the stated aim and therefore an alternative approach was developed. This approach is centred around the concept of performance targets, and each herd is monitored closely by means of a computer-based health and productivity monitoring system in order to detect deviation from target performance. When such deviations occur, the monitoring system is used to diagnose the nature of the problem. The detailed targets adopted in this study are described and the examinations which are undertaken on cattle are outlined. These examinations are aimed at correcting problems, or at confirming satisfactory performance. Further details of the findings of the study are outlined in following papers.