Vol. 10, Special Issue 10 (2025)

Milk fever is a major metabolic disorder in dairy cattle occurring around calving, leading to reduced milk yield, impaired reproduction, and substantial economic losses. Stratified random sampling procedure was adopted to select the dairy farmers from the selected district, blocks and villages. A total of 120 farmers (3 districts X 2 Blocks X 2 Villages X 10 Respondents) were selected and data was collected. The average milk loss per affected dairy animal was 276.67 litres with the value of loss accounted for Rs. 8,899. Total direct economic loss in dairy animals subsequent to the incidence of milk fever in a single lactation was estimated to be Rs.4,322.82 in dairy cows and Rs.1,323.33 in buffaloes whereas the total indirect economic loss was estimated to be Rs.18,445.30 in dairy cows and Rs.6,666.67 in buffaloes. Total economic loss in dairy animals affected with milk fever was Rs. 22,768.12 for cows and Rs.7,990.00 for buffaloes. Overall, it was estimated that economic loss in dairy animals affected with milk fever was Rs. 22,398.67 of which 81.04% (Rs. 18,150.83) was contributed by the indirect losses like reduction in milk yield and distress sale whereas 18.96% (4,247.83) was contributed by direct losses like expenditure incurred towards treatment of milk fever affected animals by veterinarians, purchase of medicines; purchase of oral supplements and incidental charges.