Abstract

Metabolic disorders are due to faulty feeding of the animals especially during stress conditions like lactation and parturition. Ketosis and fatty liver syndrome are common metabolic disorder seen in lactating dairy cows, which cause huge economic loss to the farmers. A thorough understanding of the various nutritional factors responsible for this metabolic disorder will help the farmer to adopt the optimum feeding strategy which will in turn help to prevent the incidence, whereby the economic losses can be minimised. A review of the nutritional and physiological changes occurring in the dairy cow during the transition period, underlying mechanisms, associated health problems and prevention strategies are discussed.

Keywords : Metabolic disorders, ketosis, fatty liver, transition period, nutritional factors, negative energy balance, non esterified fatty acids