Studies on Milk Fever in Dairy Cows I. The Possible Role of Vitamin D in Milk Fever

Abstract

Feeding 1 million units of vitamin D daily in the form of irradiated dry yeast for 4 weeks prior to and one week following parturition did not reduce the incidence of milk fever in an expt. involving 178 parturitions in 4 breeds of dairy cows. The highest incidence of milk fever was observed in Jersey cows. Milk fever occurred only in cows with at least 2 previous parturitions. The incidence in mature Jersey cows was found to be as high in summer as in winter. The irradiated yeast treatment reduced the incidence of milk fever somewhat in Jersey cows which had previous histories of milk fever.