Schlüsselwort: Puerperium

Homeopathic treatment of acute calving-related diseases in the early postpartum period in dairy cows Puerperium diseases are common in dairy cows after calving and treatment regimen often includes antibiotic drugs. Due to the increase in antibiotic resistances in human and veterinary medicine, antibiotic veterinary treatments are increasingly critically discussed. As an alternative to allopathic (e.g. antibiotic or NSAIDs) therapies, homeopathic treatments are already widely used in animal production. However, evidence based studies about their efficacy are still lacking. The aim of this triple-blinded, randomized and placebo controlled clinical study was to assess the efficacy of homeopathic treatments in acute calving-related diseases in early postpartum dairy cows. Between June 2013 and May 2014, 663 cows with acute calving-related postpartum diseases from a conventional dairy farm in Brandenburg were enrolled in the study. Relevant diseases were unspecific fever, retained placenta, and vulvovaginal laceration. Poor general appearance (e.g. downer cow or prolonged fever) was used as an exclusion criterion. Animals were randomly assigned to a homeopathy and a placebo group (n = 595). Towards the end of the study, a control group (n = 68) was added to the design to assess the potential placebo effect. Homeopathic preparations (remedies) were individually selected depending on the individual disease condition and according to treatment protocols of the farm. The placebo group received placebo globules. If necessary, animals from all groups were eligible to receive allopathic treatments. Data collection included general parameters (e.g. lactation number, breeding values, and milk yield), disease related parameters (e.g. number of disease and fever days), treatment related parameters (e.g. type of treatment and number of treatment days), and reproductive and culling data up to 200 days in milk. For statistical analyses, Chi-squared test, ANOVA, non-parametric tests, Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox-regression were used. Study animals in all three groups were very similar in basic characteristics, allowing the comparison among groups. There were no differences in breed, genetic potential, and milk yield in the previous lactation. Similarly, reproductive parameters (e.g. number of inseminations, time to first service, time to conception, and calving interval) and calving ease was similar among groups. An exception was the age at first calving which was significantly lower in the control group compared to the homeopathy and placebo groups. Similarly, there was a tendency for a lower lactation number in the control group. The three groups showed no difference regarding disease duration (p = 0,108), number of inseminations (p = 0,299), time to first service (p = 0,197), milk yield within the first 100 days in milk (p = 0,251) and risk of culling (p = 0,805). Furthermore, there were no differences among groups in the number of antibiotic treatments (p = 0,061) and non-antibiotic treatments (p = 0,076). The control group had a significantly reduced treatment duration in comparison with the homeopathy and placebo groups (p < 0,001), which could be attributed to a standard treatment duration of 5 days (according to the protocol) for the homeopathic and placebo treatments. Cox-regression also showed significantly shorter treatment and disease duration for control animals compared to homeopathy or placebo animals. Moreover, animals that were treated with allopathic treatments needed more time to cure compared to animals that did not receive allopathic treatments. This could be related to more severe conditions in those animals. No specific effect of homeopathic treatments used in this study could be found. An unspecific effect of the therapy was also not found. Therefore, this study does not show superiority of homeopathic therapy over allopathic or placebo treatments.