Assessing transition cow management in dairy cows for improved health, milk production, pregnancy, and culling outcomes.

Understanding of the social environment has the potential to benefit dairy cow welfare and production. Our aim was to evaluate the associations of stocking density, calving density, days spent in a prepartum group before calving (days spent in close-up, DCU), and the number of days from a pen-filling event (addition of new cows to the prepartum pen) on early-lactation health, production, pregnancy, and culling outcomes in dairy cows. Data were gathered from 2,780 cows in 2 herds. Herd management and reproductive records were analyzed for cows receiving treatment in the first 30 d of lactation (DIM) for clinical mastitis, reproductive tract disease, ketosis, milk fever, and displaced abomasum. Principal component analysis was used to account for the relationship between gestation length (GL) and DCU and their association with early lactation disease, milk production, pregnancy and culling outcomes. The effect of stocking density, the number of days from a pen filling event to calving and the calving density experienced by a cow in her week of calving was also evaluated. Causal inference was used to correct for confounding bias due to farm identity. The odds of disease in the first 30 DIM increased with stocking density before calving. A quadratic association was found between the first principal component (PC1), representing the combined effect of GL and DCU, and the odds of disease in multiparous cows only. Early lactation milk production and 305-d milk production (305M) in multiparous cows increased with PC1 score. Quadratic relationships were found between stocking density at d 8 to 2 before calving with both early lactation and 305M in multiparous cows, but no associations were found in primiparous cows. Calving density showed a quadratic association with 305M in primiparous cows. The number of days from the last pen-filling event to calving was not associated with changes in milk production. Disease occurrence was negatively associated with both early lactation and 305-d milk yield in multiparous cows but only with early lactation milk production in primiparous cows. The occurrence of disease was associated with a delayed time to pregnancy only in primiparous cows, whereas both disease and being in lactation group ≥3 were negatively associated with time to pregnancy in multiparous cows. Week 4 milk (W4MK; average daily milk yield produced during the fourth week of lactation) was positively associated with reduced time to pregnancy in multiparous cows. For primiparous cows, increasing age at calving was associated with increased culling risk, while being in lactation group ≥3 was associated with increased culling risk in multiparous cows. Culling risk decreased with increasing W4MK in all cows. These results suggest that gestation length, time spent in close-up, and stocking density are important factors influencing disease incidence in early lactation and subsequent lactation performance but had differing effects on primiparous versus multiparous cows. A better understanding of how prepartum management factors influence postpartum health and milk production can help farms to plan facilities and organize the day-to-day management of cows and will assist in improving cow welfare and productivity.